The Thread of Life 




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JfiZ. 



The Thread of Life 



BY 
COMTESSE DE AviLA 

(H. R. H. EULALIA 
INFANTA OF SPAIN) 

[Authorized translation from the original French] 




NEW YORK 

DUFFIELD & COMPANY 

1912 






Copyright 1911 by H. R. H. Eulalia. Infanta of Spain 
Copyright 1912 by Duffield & Company 



gCI.A305981 



Contents 

Page 

PREFACE 7 

GENERAL CAUSES OF HAPPINESS - 13 

THE TRAINING OF THE WILL ... - 23 

HONESTY - - - 31 

FRIENDSHIP 39 

DIVORCE --------- 51 

THE FAMILY 66 

THE COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE OF WOMAN - 73 

THE WAR UPON FEMINISM 83 

THE EQUALIZATION OF CLASSES THROUGH 

EDUCATION 93 

SOCIALISM 101 

THE WORKING CLASSES 109 

SERVANTS 117 



CONTENTS 



INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS 129 

THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION AND ITS 

INFLUENCE UPON THE PEOPLE - - - 139 

THE PRESS - 149 

MORALITY -.-.-----■- 159 

THE FEAR OF RIDICULE - - . - - - 167 

PUBLIC OPINION 175 

PREJUDICE - 183 

JUDGMENT 191 

MORAL COURAGE 199 

TRADITION . - - 207 

i/ CRITICISM - - > - - - - - 215 

THE DANGER OF EXCESSIVE ANALYSIS - 221 

THE LAW OF COMPENSATION ... - 229 




Preface 




PREFACE no matter how short 
must be placed at the head of 
this book that mirrors my ideas. 
I must especially put my readers on their 
guard against misinterpreting the motives 
which have prompted me to write it. 

In publishing these pages and setting 
forth my opinions in them I have not had 
the wish to produce a work of literature; I 
have not aimed at any monument of erudi- 
tion, nor striven to impose on other people 
my different point of view. 



THE THREAD OF LIFE 



As a spectator, near enough to the social 
questions of the day to be familiar with 
every argument concerning them, and still 
far enough away to analyse them calmly 
and impartially judge them, I can give testi- 
mony untrammeled by any preconceived 
opinions. It has occurred to me that this 
testimony, which from its very nature must 
be exact and of a net value, may be of inter- 
est to those in all classes of society who are 
trying to gather into shape the thousands 
upon thousands of incongruous and contra- 
dictory elements upon which lessons for the 
present as well as for the future must be 
founded. 

I want to say, too, that if I preserve an 
incognito on the cover of my book it is not 
timidity, but a sentiment of modesty that 
prompts me. I object to profiting by pub- 
lic curiosity on the subject of my personality. 
On the other hand I wish to sign this neces- 
sary preamble, because I have never feared 



PREFACE 9 

criticism, and because, all my life, I have 
never lacked moral courage. 

Those who are good enough to peruse the 
short chapters of this book will soon see that 
they have been written with the sincere con- 
viction that I have always shown in the ex- 
pression of my ideas and opinions or the 
accomplishment of anything I have freely 
and independently taken up, 

I simply beg my readers to excuse any 
"defects of form," and to believe that I have 
tried to redeem them by a loyal accent. 
Eulalia, 

Infanta of Spain. 




The Usual Causes 
of Happiness 




The Usual Causes 
of Happiness 

HE most imperious spring of all 
human endeavor is the desire for 
happiness. Yet it is difficult, how- 
ever the primordial desire for felicity is in- 
stinctive in us, to attain to happiness if one 
makes the search for it the main object of 
one's life. 

To know how to live is an art about which 
philosophers, scientists, and metaphysicians 
teach us little ; the first, because they ignore 
the meaning of life in order to show us its 
end; the second, because they constitute 



14 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

themselves rational theorists; and the last, 
because they pretend to lift the veil from 
what lies beyond. 

One thing is certain, that life is worth 
living, and that in order to live it happily 
one must know how to extract a relative 
amount of happiness from it. 

In no way more than by appreciating 
the delights and pleasures, small though 
they be, which every moment of the day 
brings us, can we create a real source of hap- 
piness, for from such appreciation comes 
what is usually called "the joy of living," 
that great principle of all happy natures. 

Unfortunately, in most cases, man does 
not clearly see the path that leads to happi- 
ness, because he looks for it in the immedi- 
ate and complete gratification of his desires, 
in material or intellectual pleasures to which 
he attaches an exaggerated value; in super- 
fluity, in possessions, in everything that 
causes him to mistake for happiness what in 



THE USUAL CAUSE OF HAPPIXESS 15 

reality is nothing but enjoyment linked with 
fear and danger and regret. 

One must, above all things, simplify the 
circumstances of happiness. A simple idyll, 
for example, is the most exquisite type of 
love story; it is, in other words, the sym- 
bol of perfection in the amorous senti- 
ment. Simplicity in regard to personal 
tastes, affections, daily acts, is the greatest 
secret of happiness and of love. 

If it were justifiable to give ourselves only 
partial and transitory gratifications, we 
should, according to our natures, be able to 
build happiness on these flimsy foundations. 
Fortune is unstable; fame, no matter how 
attained, is effaced by time; glory is an 
empty w r ord; health becomes impaired, and 
misfortune and unhappiness follow when- 
ever the greatest pleasure has not lain in 
constant aspiration toward the true, the 
beautiful and the good. 

But still this aspiration must spring from 



16 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

the cultivation of our moral ego in all sim- 
plicity. Happiness lies within ourselves; 
and it is only by the ethical development of 
our personality that we can wholly round it 
out, and make it the sweet companion of 
our days. 

Is it not true that in love, if one is guided 
by one's heart, one is much happier than if 
guided by reason? The same rule holds 
good in material existence; reduced to sim- 
plicity, to the normal cultivation of our fac- 
ulties, we gain a greater share of happiness 
than could be gotten from excesses. Vice of 
any kind yields only momentary gratifica- 
tion, tinged with bitterness even at the 
moment. 

But how shall we set to work to develop a 
moral personality? In the first place by 
educating ourselves, and next by the selec- 
tion of congenial friends. Every one who 
knows his own aspirations, should surround 
himself with people whose sentiments con- 



THE USUAL CAUSE OF HAPPINESS 17 

form to his. Painful jars and regrettable 
shocks may be thus avoided, and battles from 
which even the most stout and combative 
natures cannot escape without wounds, fa- 
tigue, and disgust. 

If you are obliged to live in a country 
different from your own, or amid surround- 
ings the mentality of which does not corre- 
spond to the trend of your spirit, look the 
situation coolly in the face: learn to be by 
turns the w r ise preceptor and the willing 
disciple; by doing this you will be under- 
stood and appreciated, and preserve intact 
your inward peace. 

One must learn how to pass through moral 
and intellectual atmospheres as one passes 
through the atmospheres of the physical 
world. Just as you wear the costume that is 
seasonable, so your soul must wear the cos- 
tume that is most appropriate to its sur- 
roundings. Many people are afraid to live: 
they are thrown into despair by the slightest 



18 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

failure. They fence about as if in fear of 
ambush, irritated or disconcerted constantly 
by their mistakes. Remember that no cir- 
cumstance can weigh you down or frustrate 
your enjoyment of life if your happiness is 
a matter of inward contentment, a support 
of the spirit that can be acquired in spite of 
the worst misfortunes or catastrophes. As 
inward happiness proceeds from a state of 
mind produced by education, by the cultiva- 
tion of simplicity, and the adaptation of 
oneself to uncongenial surroundings, so it is 
necessary to obey these laws if one would 
steer his bark skilfully through the shoals of 
life and know the supreme joy of living. 

In the declining years of life one who has 
followed such precepts as these can look back 
serenely upon his past, for he will have 
extracted all possible happiness from every- 
thing, and will know that he has never 
willingly done an injury. With infinite 
tranquility, above all if he has known too, as 



THE USUAL CAUSE OF HAPPINESS 19 

he will have known, how to cultivate the love 
of nature, with its charm and eternal grace, 
he may without fear come near the gates of 
death and see them open before him. 




The Traijiing of the Will 



The Training of the Will 




HE will is the faculty of deciding 
freely upon certain things. But 
for the will always to obey a noble 
aim, it must be carefully trained to weigh 
opposing impulses and motives. 

Ribot says: CC I will indicates a situation, 
but does not constitute one." To such a 
situation character, which is nothing more 
nor less than the power of the will, must 
contribute something also. And character 
must be formed by progressive education 
and constant cultivation of personality. 



23 



24 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

A man must stamp directness of purpose 
on everything he does, and show his character 
by his deeds. 

The training of the will is indispen- 
sable throughout life, if only to do away 
with useless effort, and give us clear vision 
morally, to make us master of ourselves, 
teach us to persevere in whatever we 
take up, to go directly at our pur- 
pose. Considered in this light, the will be- 
comes of prime importance in the life of the 
individual, and constitutes one of the most 
powerful forces in the world — free and 
voluntary action controlled by sound judg- 
ment. 

If you train your will, and follow good- 
ness, beauty, and justice, you will never 
undertake an intellectual work at a time 
when inauspicious circumstances curb you, 
you will never let a task remain unfinished, 
you will never carry out a purpose to an 
uncertain end. 



THE TRAINING OF THE WILL 25 

The immortal Guyau has said: "He who 
does not act in accordance with what he 
thinks, thinks but imperfectly." For in 
order to think perfectly it is necessary that 
an idea be solidly supported by judgment, 
and judgment comes from the training of 
the will. 

Let us make no mistake, this training 
furnishes us with invaluable energy. After 
considering well what one is going to do, 
foreseeing consequences, measuring the use- 
fulness of the undertaking, after having 
adjusted the action to the end in view, one 
should freely obey his own will; then, espe- 
cially if it be lighted at a moral fire, he may 
assume in full consciousness and serenity all 
responsibility for his act. 

The idea of responsibility implies that the 
individual will is responsible to itself, face 
to face. From the moment the will is taken 
in hand and trained we are enabled to make 
almost instantaneous decisions, to obviate 



26 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

loss of time, no longer to waste it by hesita- 
tation, investigation, or vacillation. A 
trained habit of mind brings all our forces 
into play instinctively, and the idea of liberty 
becomes one with that of possession, so that 
to think of freedom is to be free — in other 
words to gain the end attained. 

So important intellectually is the training 
of the will that intelligent action is really im- 
possible without it. In our modern day, 
many intellectual people are victims of hesi- 
tation and doubt, incapable of acting in 
prompt accordance with reason and logic, 
because their will power has been neglected. 

A trained will is a great steadying power 
in life. To begin with, it permits us to ac- 
complish each thing in its turn; it saves our 
opinions from inconsistency, by endowing 
reason with perspicuity and methodical re- 
flection; it guards us especially from emo- 
tional storms, with their injury to one's 
health and intellectual independence. 



THE TRAINING OF THE WILL 27 

Let us not forget, either, that will power 
accomplishes some very useful deeds and 
produces some very strong characters. 

Timidity, for example, that excessive and 
uncontrollable agitation which is such a 
difficulty with many temperaments, comes 
from nothing but the lack of trained w T ill 
power. He who does not logically under- 
stand the trend of his emotions and control 
them, cannot argue in a reasonable way. 

It must be particularly noted that by 
training of the will I do not mean the impo- 
sition of moral restraints upon it. An 
individual must feel himself free, cling only 
to his own ideal of goodness, and repulse all 
thought of authority, if he is really to be free. 
He must have no more intention of submit- 
ting to undue authority in others than of 
imposing it himself. 

This ideal, inseparable from any concep- 
tion of life or conduct that is to be of any 
use to ourselves or others, always develops in 



28 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

proportion as our will is trained : it constrains 
us to think methodically, to act with logical 
conscientiousness. 

To cling to an ideal despite all distractions, 
to shut oneself up with it, to concentrate 
upon it, to struggle passionately and enthusi- 
astically for the realization of it, to bow to 
logic — this is what it means to train one's 
will power and preserve one's mental vigor. 

Violence and haste are always the enemies 
of wisdom and good judgment. What is 
lost in intensity by stopping to think is more 
than gained in quality and logic. 

If you train your will wisely you will 
double your life, because by not wasting 
your days in useless projects you will have 
realized all of them in the highest aspirations 
of your mental vision. 

And as you will do everything in full 
possession of your faculties you will not miss 
the joy of having done what is meritorious 
and right. 



Honesty 



Honesty 




ONE STY, the quality of con- 
forming to ideas of honor, is a 
somewhat relative term, varying 
according to the moral customs of the coun- 
try. A man generally considers himself 
honest if he does not overstep the bounds of 
legalized dishonesty. In commerce, for in- 
stance, which is at bottom but a game of 
deceptions, probity, as Dr. Dubois says, is 
not everywhere upon the same plane. "There 
are communities but little civilized in some 
respects, in which honesty is scrupulously 



31 



THE THREAD OF LIFE 



adhered to; and there are others in which, 
notwithstanding considerable development 
along scientific, artistic, and literary lines, 
the moral conscience seems to have become 
atrophied. Again some people who are pro- 
verbially honest in business have very elastic 
consciences in regard to sexual morality." 

In the liberal professions, or in social 
positions which place an individual far above 
the masses, man's honesty consists in adapt- 
ing his conscience to the exigencies of the 
moment. 

Whether it be a question of commercial or 
industrial enterprise, of intellectual theories 
or public or private morals, whether matters 
of general or of individual interest, mascu- 
line honesty is too often a make-shift which, 
though it may begin with a desire for free- 
dom of action, is apt to end in culpability 
toward others. 

A woman's honesty is something quite 
different. It consists simply in protecting 



HONESTY 33 



"the family honor," in preventing any "in- 
truder" from crossing the conjugal thresh- 
old, in avoiding any scandal of the kind that 
is calculated to dim the authority of her lord 
and master, even though it free her soul from 
its ancient bondage. 

That is why a man and a woman can 
never attain to perfect accord with each 
other, so much is honesty, taken in its broad 
sense, a different thing for each. True 
honesty, the respect for the principle of 
equity in all things, can have no sex. Re- 
garded either as an absolute or as a relative 
virtue, it can not be interpreted according to 
individual temperament. 

This primordial difficulty, the cause of 
continual friction in so called "regular" 
marriages, has always been too lightly dwelt 
upon. 

How many examples one could give of a 
lack of moral nicety falsifying the face of 
honesty and responsibility! 



34 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

How many really grave offenses are com- 
mitted by men in power because they know 
they enjoy immunity from justice! How 
many things are done that come within the 
letter of the law but nevertheless trespass on 
the liberty of others, and display indifference 
to public opinion and social prejudice! 

How many men, sacrificing the most im- 
portant interests of their country to their 
personal ambitions, are merely censured by 
public opinion, escaping all penalties! 

The orator and rhetorician mingling his 
Utopias and interested falsehoods in the 
public press during some moment of na- 
tional effervescence and excitement, the 
ringleader crudely deceiving the masses and 
knowing all the time the despicable nature of 
his work, the politician betraying his past for 
present gain and preferment — they are fine 
ones to talk of honor! Yet to them and 
many like them a woman must render obedi- 
ence and respect without comparisons. The 



HONESTY 35 



suggestion that her honor and imperious 
tasks are on a plane above demagogues and 
scandal mongers is not allowed. 

On the other hand, a woman has the privi- 
lege of mentioning if she likes that the 
husband of her best friend is making love to 
her, destroying in one breath the happiness 
of some peaceful home, without the neces- 
sity of any explanation to the man accused. 

The whole difficulty between the sexes can 
be solved only by placing men and women 
on an equal footing in point of morals and 
responsibilities. Only thus can their mutual 
esteem and value be preserved. 

But to reach such a goal they must first 
study tolerance and the rules of harmony. 
The man must, in some measure, curb his 
egoism; the woman must take care that her 
life is not only given up to love, but to rea- 
sonableness as well. There must be social 
equity, conscience and moral responsibility. 
Above all, an equal franchise must deter- 



36 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

mine what is right in business and in private 
matters, to the end that a moral atmosphere 
may be created in which forgery and fraud, 
and lies and currupting of the people, in 
short all the monstrous paraphernalia of our 
modern social system, may no longer endure 
existence. Thus honesty, relative though it 
be, will become rational, the same for men 
as for women; and the sexes will again be 
bound not only by social but by moral con- 
tract. 




Friendship 



Friendship 




N the strict sense of the term, 
friendship, that is to say, affection 
exempt from all sensuality, plays 
an enormous role in the lives of men and 
women. 

Friendship between men is based on a 
moral equality. The tie that unites their 
minds and hearts is formed of the same 
duties and obligations for both, no matter 
how far apart may be their fortunes and 
worldly rank. Wherever there is friendship, 
there is reciprocity. 

39 



40 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

It is this fact that makes La Boetie, Mon- 
taigne's great friend, say: "Friendship is a 
sacred word, a sacred thing. . . . There 
can be no friendship where there is treachery 
or injustice. . . . The wicked are not 
friends, they are accomplices." 

Emerson, who has sound judgment in 
regard to everything that is elevated, great, 
and powerful in the dual character of friend- 
ship, has written a wonderful page regarding 
it, which I should like to quote : 

"The sufficient reply to the skeptic who 
doubts the power and the furniture of man, 
is in that possibility of joyful intercourse 
with persons, which makes the faith and 
practice of all reasonable men. I know noth- 
ing which life has to offer so satisfying as 
the profound good understanding which can 
subsist, after much exchange of good offices, 
between two virtuous men, each of whom is 
sure of himself and sure of his friend. It is 



FRIENDSHIP 41 



a happiness which postpones all other grati- 
fications, and makes politics, and commerce, 
and churches, cheap. For when men shall 
meet as they ought, each a benefactor, a 
shower of stars, clothed with thoughts, with 
deeds, with accomplishments, it should be the 
festival of nature which all things announce. 
Of such friendship love in the sexes is the 
first symbol, as all other things are symbols 
of love. Those relations to the best men, 
which, at one time, we reckoned the romances 
of youth, become, in the progress of the 
character, the most solid enjoyment. 55 

Friendship between women is very differ- 
ent from that between men, just because the 
sentiment of equality does not play as large 
a part in it as it should. It is very rare for a 
woman, no matter how well educated she 
may be, to forget her rank and fortune in 
the presence of a friend who is under obliga- 
tion to her. And it is equally rare for a 



42 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

woman occupying a modest position not to 
take offense at everything that makes this 
inequality evident. The result is that friend- 
ship between women is not often a constant 
interchange of sentiments, and too often may 
be based on interest rather than on obliga- 
tion. 

Between man and woman friendship may 
certainly be considered to assume one of its 
most attractive forms. Between a man and 
a woman of superior education and refine- 
ment, it not only holds a great place in life, 
but becomes absolutely a necessity, reinforc- 
ing the intellectual power of both. Friend- 
ship of this sort strongly resembles disinter- 
ested love. It is always controlled by mys- 
terious influences, and in that way gains in 
value. There are certain people who have 
the gift of inviting our confidences; others 
who fill our hearts with joy as soon as we 
see them, dear ones in whose mere presence 
our spirit becomes brave and our speech 
more eloquent. 



FRIENDSHIP 43 



Based on the confidence that the opposite 
sex inspires in us women, the friendship 
between man and woman holds something 
more. Even in family relationships, in what 
one may call family friendships, it plays an 
important role. It is but rarely that sons 
betray their mothers, or sisters betraj^ their 
brothers. 

It has been said that friendship is blind; 
on the contrary, I think it so absolutely con- 
scious of its duty that it needs no oath to 
consecrate it. 

If man considers his friend his second self, 
a woman considers a man friend her counsel- 
lor, confidant and protector all in one. He 
stands for respect and strength, and unsel- 
fish devotion: he becomes the personification 
of that goodness which furnishes a refuge in 
time of suffering or wrong doing or need of 
pardon. 

For a man the woman who is his friend is 
one in whom he could not ask the slightest 



44 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

change without injury to the purest thing 
there is in the world: affectionate love that 
asks for nothing in return. 
• Too great intimacy always is likely to 
blight this sort of friendship, which, to quote 
Emerson again, follows the laws of divine 
necessity, at any rate, so long as the details 
of their daily and domestic life are not the 
same for men and women. Even in this 
case friendship must keep its aloof and sa- 
cred character, or fall into the way of de- 
manding over much. 

Yes, the human heart j^earns for a friend. 
It searches for friendship everywhere, from 
childhood on, and from the moment a friend 
is gained swells with the pride of having 
conquered happiness and the desire for bet- 
ter things. In our own eyes we reflect the 
eyes of a friend, in his absence the mirror 
reflects his care for us. The sight of him 
fills us with the greatest emotion, his pres- 
ence sheds a lustre over each present mo- 



FRIENDSHIP 45 



ment, and gives us infinite satisfaction. 
Montaigne has done an injustice to the most 
beautiful of spiritual things by denying the 
existence of friendship between men and 
women, and Xietzsche too readily asserts, 
not taking moral worth into the account, that 
friendship between men and women cannot 
be maintained unless there be some physical 
antipathy between them. 

It seems true that Don Juan and Ninon 
de Lenclos could never have remained mere 
friends; but it is also certain that the most 
beautiful woman can command the greatest 
respect from an honorable man, even if he 
is good-looking, for friendship between man 
and woman rests above all on special con- 
ditions and communion of spirit, the sharing 
of similar tastes, a spirituality full of tender- 
ness, and not on any shadow of desire. The 
continual interchange of elevating thoughts, 
the habit of fraternal intercourse, puts a bar 
to a man and woman friend falling in love, 
or entertaining any carnal passion. 



46 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

Individual temperament, of course, plays 
a large part in these unions of the heart, for 
friendship may spring from prudence as 
well as from duly appreciating the senti- 
ments of another. It is evident that two ill- 
balanced persons cannot make good friends, 
whereas two dissimilar natures, if on the 
same moral plane, will be well balanced in 
friendship, each putting a sort of safety 
valve upon the other. 

For example, a man of calm tempera- 
ment, whose heart is not dried up, makes 
the best kind of friend for an impulsive 
woman, and can have the best possible in- 
fluence over her. 

As for amorous friendships, so copiously 
discussed, derided and described, I have 
already said that friendship between man 
and woman is a form of disinterested 
love. Amorous friendship on the other hand 
is love based on mental sympathy, on esteem 
for another's moral qualities, on admiration 



FRIENDSHIP 



for certain deeds and thoughts that give ex- 
pression to a temperament. For in amorous 
friendship, affection which comes from the 
heart, dominates love which comes from the 
senses. 

This form of friendship is not to be dis- 
dained, however dangerous it may appear 
in the eyes of austere moralists or hypo- 
crites. Consider such a case of friend- 
ship between man and woman. If either 
of them needs advice on matters of deep 
feeling, it will not be given disinterestedly, 
direct and without equivocation, unless it be 
free from jealousy — unless it comes from 
the heart, and not from the nerves. 

Thus it is that amorous friendship is a 
precious resource, for it alone can inspire 
the language of deep and protecting love, 
without ever demanding the recompense of 
possession. 



Divorce 



Divorce 




ARM AGE, looked upon by mod- 
ern society as a necessary mode of 
union, is also a covenant regulated 
3y law. 

In the eyes of Roman Catholics, marriage 
is a sacrament that cannot be dissolved, and 
so there is no such thing as divorce. 

According to this principle we should have 
to accept as a sacrament a bond that is more 
terrestrial and material than spiritual; yet 
strangely enough, though the Church of 
Rome enjoins upon man, through the voice 
of its priests, the attainment of human per- 



52 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

f ection through the taking of all the sacra- 
ments, she definitely forbids her representa- 
tives the priests from partaking of the sac- 
rament of marriage, that one of all others 
which would be the most helpful to them. In 
this, the church, it seems to me, makes an 
illogical exception to her imperious rule. 

"Viewed from the point of view of psy- 
chology," says Dr. Toulouse, "marriage is 
an agreement between two human beings 
based, at first on passion, later on congenial- 
ity. From the social standpoint it repre- 
sents the means taken by nature to repro- 
duce the species. 

"The sentiment surrounding the union of 
two beings has not been too greatly exalted 
by the poets. It is the highest manifesta- 
tion of love purifying the sexual instinct. 

"Such choice is, in itself, a proof of the 
free working of the will, which has, for those 
who hold it within bounds, an influence over 
the tyrannical impulses of passion. A 



DIVORCE 53 



woman moreover, giving herself to one man 
alone, demonstrates the fact that she is her 
own mistress and can dispose of herself as 
she likes. 

"Sexual liberty, the final outcome of evo- 
lution, has nowadays its clearest manifesta- 
tion in the marriage that is contracted volun- 
tarily by both parties to it. But it follows 
as a corollary to this that divorce also should 
be granted at the will of the participants." 

Let us look into the question of divorce 
from this utilitarian point of view. 

Divorce has the advantage of relieving 
marriage from the stigma of perpetual bond- 
age, from the necessity of being regarded as 
a grievous yoke, or a prison deliberately 
entered into to ensure one's livelihood. 

In point of fact it seems only justice not 
too strictly to enforce the marriage bond in 
the case of people who find they cannot live 
together happily, to put an end to moral 
sorrow, to stop the quarrelsomeness that in 



54 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

some bad cases goes even so far as violence 
and murder ; to avoid, in a word, all the senti- 
mental and emotional consequences that 
spring from the principle of the indissolubil- 
ity of marriage. 

To abolish the sad experiment of the mar- 
riage of convenience would be equivalent to 
insuring the perpetuation of the family by 
children normally begotten and free from 
morbid tendencies; from the social point of 
view too, there would be the advantage of 
acquiring husbands who could not count on 
the complete shirking of their responsi- 
bilities. 

How many people live together for long 
years, strangers to each other in thought and 
in the flesh ! How many people have entered 
into slavery by reason of abnormal, sterile 
and mutually hateful marriages! In the 
name of what principle of religion are 
women required to live eternally in a Ge- 
henna of tortures as varied as they are 



DIVORCE 55 



crushing? Is there no individual right to 
correct miscalculation and despair? 

Why should a woman whose husband fails 
her in the moral support she needs, submit 
without a struggle to the horrors of a long 
life of agony, to perpetual combat in which 
she is miserably crushed; on the other hand, 
why need a man who does not find his wife 
the right companion or the slave he desired, 
have the road to happiness forever barred 
against him? 

Marriage is based on a contract. Now, 
every real contract may be rectified, modi- 
fied, or canceled. To make a compact, mu- 
tual consent is necessary; and from the 
moment that either party withholds consent 
it naturally must dissolve. 

Before divorce was established men and 
women who lived together unhappily had to 
endure torture worse than death, the un- 
speakable punishment of being united, body 
and soul, in hatred, indifference, or con- 
tempt. 



56 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

In earlier times those strong and inde- 
pendent people who had no fear of public 
opinion or any undue regard for social con- 
ventions, went each one his own way, and 
established a separate home, as is done now 
in some countries; for example, in Spain, 
where there is no divorce, where even legal 
separation is not recognized. But even 
though they ceased to live together their 
marriage was still valid, and the question of 
fortune was a difficult one to handle. It is 
the same to-day with all marriages between 
uncongenial couples, whether they lead an 
infernal life together for propriety's sake, or 
seek refuge from each other in separation. 
Under the code of Napoleon a woman can- 
not dispose of her marriage portion, and the 
husband, on his side, can sell nothing without 
the signature of his consort. The joint own- 
ership of property is always a menace to 
peace, for in married life the individual soul 
is a sentry always ready to fire on any sign 



DIVORCE 57 



of trespass. There is, too, not much object 
in economizing for one's heirs when one's 
property goes to one's spouse anyway in 
case of death. A different case, and a very 
serious one, too, can occur. If the husband 
or the wife contract debts, then according to 
law these debts become mutual, so that often 
the one who has no debts is forced to pay the 
debts of the other ! 

How complications multiply, how many 
doors open to dissension, how much rancor 
accumulates, through such injustices! Wid- 
owhood or widowerhood seems the only 
way out of desperate situations like these. 

And there is something even more serious. 
In a household completely disunited and 
exhausted by daily jars, the children are too 
often present at scenes that must disillusion- 
ize them sadly as to "conjugal love." Thus 
they become victims too, both from the moral 
point of view as well as that of private inter- 
est, to non-divorce; for on account of joint 



58 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

ownership, that rigid preemptor, the capital 
of the children, cannot be increased. 

If we pass from this state of things to one 
which concerns people's private lives the 
situation is equally grave. 

From the day that cohabitation becomes 
impossible the husband more or less openly 
sets up in place of his regular marriage an 
illegitimate union, and it is rather rarely 
that he does not take into his own house the 
woman he has chosen for his new compan- 
ion; this too, despite the fact that the abode 
of the husband, since his marriage has never 
been legally broken, remains the conjugal 
home, and causes additional insult to his 
rightful spouse. 

A woman, on the other hand, though 
she conducts herself almost always with 
more tact and consideration than a 
man, can hardly, unless in cases of sep- 
aration, prevent echoes of attentions 
paid her from reaching her husband's ears, 



DIVORCE 59 



or manage to keep him ignorant of the fact 
that she gives willingly to another man that 
favor which she accords him with so much 
repugnance. 

Divorce abolishes the gratuitous insult 
done to the nuptial rite. The advantages it 
offers exceed many times the disadvantages 
enumerated by its defenders. It is a worth- 
less institution to-day because it remains 
unchanged in spite of the evolution of society 
all around it. 

The opponents of divorce pretend that 
it destroys family life. That is not true, 
because there are no longer any fami- 
lies to destroy. Frankly and fairly, 
what has become of the old-time family? 
The rule of the majority has made mere 
children independent ; compulsory educa- 
tion, though it has not greatly changed the 
condition of the masses, has taken the edge 
off parental responsibility; and in the vast 
world of higher education, what with college 



60 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

life and education by the State, boys and 
girls soon become strangers to those that 
have given them birth. 

If hypocrisy were not at the root of 
prejudice, we could soon persuade ourselves 
that nothing remains of the family consid- 
ered as a sacred institution. 

Authority on one side, and submission on 
the other, are exceptional conditions; and 
the sacrifices that parents used to make of 
every kind, even that of their own happiness, 
are scarcely called for in our day. 

No, divorce is useful, necessary, right. 
But it can and must become more so by de- 
velopment and modification. Divorce by 
mutual consent should be the remedy for 
ills that disgrace the human soul; those un- 
fortunately married should be allowed to 
dissolve their union without having to expose 
to public curiosity or judges or malicious 
lawyers all the intimate details of two lives 
wrecked by misunderstandings and incom- 



DIVORCE 61 



patibility, excess, ill-treatment and outrage. 
And those who escape from their conjugal 
jail should be permitted, profiting by the ex- 
perience they have gained, to wed the 
beloved one that has consoled and sustained 
them in the battle of life. 

Nine times out of ten these new marriages 
are happ} r , because the contracting parties 
have had time to appreciate each other's 
good qualities, because they have obeyed the 
law of love, because they have not followed 
conventions, and generally speaking, are 
not guided by self-interest, that chief and 
most pernicious cause of disagreement be- 
tween the sexes. 

Divorce as it stands to-day in Catholic 
countries, does not offer a complete solution 
of the distressing problems of married life. 
It is inadmissible, inhuman, worse, immoral, 
that a human being who has suffered pati- 
ently during twenty years for "the sake of 
the children," should, if he finally desert that 



m THE THREAD OF LIFE 

hell, be condemned to pass the remainder of 
his days in concubinage. It is not right that 
he should not be allowed to light his love at 
a new hearth, or consecrate by marriage the 
affection and devotion that have healed his 
old wounds, given him new joy of life, new 
moral and social obligations. 

The day divorce laws become just, and 
not, as is too often the case now, a tacit con- 
nivance at libertinism ; the day a divorce can 
be obtained whenever the party able to give 
substantial reason for it desires it, or can 
be gained by mutual consent; when cer- 
tain unions of the sexes besides legitimate 
marriage are recognized by law as respon- 
sible, when the adulterer is no longer in- 
famous, and both lover and mistress, under 
normal circumstances, can wed — then many 
incoherent situations will be equitably solv- 
ed, and we shall have worked intelligently 
for the individual and for society. 



The Family 



The Family 




O-DAY the institution of the mod- 
ern family, specially in Northern 
countries has become an almost 
artificial thing. Probably in the near future 
it will be completely disintegrated. 

In France, especially among the middle 
classes, the family seems to me destined to 
remain for a long time what it was in ances- 
tral days, because it forms an association 
whose members, closely bound together, 
preserve mutual commercial or industrial 
interests. This sort of family type of the 
frugal classes will subsist as long as its 



6Q THE THREAD OF LIFE 

members maintain their associations, and 
keep intact its ancient social traditions, each 
continuing his special interest in the family 
enterprises. In Spain, where the Moorish 
conquest has left still so many traces of 
primitive organization, the family bears to 
this day certain traits of slavery, though one 
may actually hear Spanish women boast of 
it. 

We must not consider here only these two 
special types, in which the different members 
of the family yield to the man as head and 
master; for the family has had different 
phases according to environment, national 
custom and social stations. 

In order to reach less specialized conclu- 
sions, we must begin at the beginning, and 
consider the family as it has evolved with the 
progress of civilization. The first mention 
of the family in the history of the human 
race is of a patriarchial group consisting of 
father, mother and children. Marriage was 



THE FAMILY 67 



not then necessary; instead there were va- 
rious successive unions. The sexes mingled 
promiscuously, so that women belonged to 
various men, and children had no particular 
father. Conditions such as these prevailed 
in many instances for so long that the Chris- 
tian Church was obliged for a time to toler- 
ate this kind of sexual communism. Hero- 
dotus tells us that Lycian children bore the 
name of their mother; Varron assures us 
that the same custom prevailed in Athens, 
and that a woman, if she was the producer 
of the family wealth, alone inherited it. 

When polygamy came in, woman was 
reduced to a state of seclusion amounting 
sometimes even to slavery. Her principal 
role consisted in bringing children into the 
world, children whom she was left more 
often than not to bring up by instinct rather 
than intelligence or affection. 

As for man, he sought chiefly his physical 
gratification in his associations with women, 



68 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

and concerned himself very little about pa- 
ternity. 

Later, partly owing to increasing civili- 
zation, association with one wife set limits 
to the family, and separate groups and 
classes of such families were formed, which, 
little by little drifted together, though not 
necessarily with any blood relationship be- 
tween them, and the status of the family was 
still further modified. 

Causes for its gradual dissolution have 
increased in accordance with environment, 
and social status. In one place the law of 
primogeniture conferred special privileges; 
in another paternal control lessened the au- 
thority of the mother over her daughters. In 
general there has been a tendency toward 
emancipation of the individual — till finally, 
in our time, in either extreme of society, the 
institution of the family is, as I say, some- 
thing almost artificial. Peace no longer 
exists in intimate family relations; either 



THE FAMILY 69 



there is trouble between the husband and the 
wife, or a proper balance is not maintained 
between parents and children, or between 
brothers and sisters ; there is a clash of opin- 
ions, intolerance, a jarring of personal inter- 
ests, and rarely harmony. 

Furthermore, I must say that I think the 
reasons for marriage are not the same now 
as they used to be, when unions were indis- 
soluble, founded on the instinct of propri- 
etorship and the rule of a group. 

The love match itself, though it is the only 
respectable union after all, has broken down 
the original intention of marriage, because 
with it has come the legal aspect of the situ- 
ation, so that even though love does not en- 
dure, the law which joined the lovers still has 
its responsibilities. The law will no longer 
tolerate the brutal lord and master, or per- 
mit a woman to be degraded when she is the 
more virtuous and morally steady party to 
the contract. It has been said that it is 



70 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

enough for a woman to be beautiful, and a 
mother. That is a piece of honeyed foolish- 
ness. A woman has the right to the develop- 
ment of all her faculties, the exercise of all 
her functions besides the machinery of ma- 
ternity. Many noble feminine natures have 
proved that besides conceiving children they 
have been qualified to follow in the immortal 
footsteps of heroes, artists and thinkers. 
Every day we see women compete in talent, 
energy and patient application with scien- 
tists, poets and intellectual speculators on 
spiritual things. 

But it will be said that such pretentions 
are contrary to the idea of the family. There 
is nothing in that. The family, essentially 
modified, allows to each member his own 
opinions, and provided reciprocal rights and 
duties are observed, it needs no further 
adornment than children born not from 
questionable contracts, or dubious connec- 
tions based on interest, but of sincere love. 



The Complete Independence 
of Woman 



The Complete Independence 
of Woman 




jO the question succinctly stated: 
' 'Why should man assume the 
right to live as he pleases, and 
woman submit to a prohibitive mode of 
morals?" men reply that legitimate union 
requires first of all that adultery and the 
introduction of bastards into the family 
must be avoided. 

This retort takes account of only one 
special point : it answers in the case of mar- 
ried women only. In the case of women 
that are free, by what right shall we say they 
must not experience complete independence 



74 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

— enjoyment just like men? "The life of 
woman as well as that of man," Miramont 
has said, "is a harmonious evolution, which 
passes through every phase, and extracts the 
essence from all successive forms and as- 
pects of existence. Daughter, mother, and 
grandmother; imaginative, courageous or 
meditative, woman, like man, is transformed 
many times in the course of her existence, 
and shows progress constantly." 

The very fact of social evolution, the com- 
bination of various forces in the combat of 
life, the rationalization of education, should 
long ago have shown that woman is not an 
inferior being fit only to propagate the 
species. 

Happily we are now far removed from 
the theories of a Schopenhauer, with his idea 
of woman as afflicted with intellectual myo- 
pia, a puerile, futile and limited thing, 
inferior to man in her sense of equity and 
justice, and in honesty; lacking common 



COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE OF WOMAN 75 

sense and reflection; incapable of taking 
part disinterestedly in anything whatsoever, 
etc., etc. 

If the chief peculiarity of woman is that 
nature destined her to be a mother, it is no 
less true, in spite of her more delicate or- 
ganization and her sensitiveness to impres- 
sions, that her mind quickly grasps details 
and her brain substantially is as capable as 
that of a man. 

The apparent inferiority of woman comes 
from her being oppressed by laws, and mis- 
used by the moralists; her natural fearf ill- 
ness and diffidence are imaginary rather than 
real. 

The truth is that man, desiring to preserve 
the supremacy which he feels to be his due, 
does not enjoy in woman the qualities of 
courage and independence. He will not 
admit that any encounter may have fatali- 
ties between two beings impelled by the same 
needs and the same desires. Men like to see 



76 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

women tied down by the material household 
needs, and thoughtful women who can no 
longer resign themselves to this, want their 
sex to be emancipated by equal rights. 

The partisans of unrestricted feminism 
recognize no difference between man and 
woman, but assert that there is a biological 
equality on which their claim to social equal- 
ity is based. 

Without going quite so far as that at 
present, one may yet believe that women 
should enjoy more and more independence, 
and be allowed without too much shocking 
of the moralists to prove their courage and 
their faculties. 

Unfortunately, the case is true, as one 
moralist has put it: "Kept apart from the 
magnificent realities of life, so beautiful 
even in their often brutal ugliness, forever 
held in a state of moral dependence more in- 
jurious than physical bondage, only quitting 
the maternal yoke to come under conjugal 



COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE OF WOMAN 77 

tutelage, brought up with no thought but 
that of a marriage that is to transform the 
child suddenly and brusquely into a wife, 
the wife into a mother, educated according 
to the prejudices of the "set" in which she 
moves and prevented thus from developing 
any personality, sacrificed in advance, 
women do not develop normally unless they 
happen to find the perfect being who con- 
forms to the elaborate ideal they have set up 
in their obscure minds. And as social con- 
ventions do not permit them to seek this 
ideal, which is vague and distorted enough 
by novels and other reading, as fate gener- 
ally enlightens them too late to change the 
order of the existence which they have ac- 
cepted through timidity or ignorance or 
despite — so, thoroughly under the control of 
society, they mostly remain children submis- 
sive to their lot; or they rebel and seek vis- 
ionary compensations: in any case they are 
'not understood.' " 



78 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

The case cannot be put better than that. 
For many centuries man has denied the 
existence in women of the highest qualities, 
bravery and presence of mind, so that most 
women have come to the conclusion that 
these qualities are not feminine at all, are 
even defects if they happen to occur in the 
feminine nature. 

Now, if tenderness be the most beautiful 
attribute of woman, one must recognize that 
true tenderness is a characteristic particular- 
ly of women that are strong and courageous 
and masters of finesse. The acceptance of 
servitude does not comport with true tender- 
ness, the kind, for example, that leads to the 
conception and execution of works of art, 
the kind that inspires noble deeds, the kind 
that exerts a wonderful influence in every 
degree of the social scale. 

In many countries, the attention of think- 
ers has been, for several years, riveted on the 
liberty of woman. In many cases there has 



COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE OF WOMAN 79 

been equivocation and reaction; in opposi- 
tion to a Stuart Mill many philosophers like 
Nietzsche have risen up. The idea has made 
steady progress nevertheless in scientific 
minds, and the rational social point of view 
has made people study seriously the ultimate 
liberation of woman from her social yoke. 

In far off days, in many races, the males 
were chosen by the females for their prowess, 
their physical strength, their native beauty. 
As selection led to a progressive evolution 
of the male in such races, there resulted also 
though evidently in an obscure and uncon- 
scious way, an ideal female type as comple- 
ment to it. 

But when woman became the "property" 
of man, a slave destined to work for the 
male, the development of the race was com- 
pletely arrested. The salutary act of selec- 
tion exercised by the woman, stopped when 
she was not free to choose. 

In a new state of society, woman, while 



80 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

satisfying her mental ambitions, will regain 
complete liberty; the law of affinities will 
prevail and under the force of the feminine 
ideal, more vigorous and hardy races will 
prepare to meet the future. 




The War Upon Feminism 



The War Upon Feminism 




T is almost incredible that so many 
men capable of reasoning intel- 
ligently and with logic, should 
have set themselves against modern femin- 
ism. I say "modern" in order to specify the 
exact status of the conflict, for as Lucien 
Muhlfelt has expressed it, "eternal femin- 
ism" is contemporaneous with "the eternal 
feminine." After Schopenhauer's and 
Strindberg's attempts to demonstrate the 
inferiority of woman, the present efforts of 
the detractors of feminism have proved very 
feeble. Since woman is in their eves an in- 



84 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

ferior being they are battling with something 
of which theoretically they should have no 
fear — and that in itself shows lack of cour- 
age ; on the other hand if they admit that in 
our modern state of society, woman's role is a 
more and more important one, they recog- 
nize her competition with them — with suf- 
ficient insinceritjr, it would seem. 

The moment woman realizes that she can 
earn a living in employments hitherto re- 
served for men, she demands perforce her 
share in instruction and in education, and 
mental inequality will ultimately cease to 
exist. 

At first, unable to rise above the subordi- 
nate family position assigned to her by the 
civil code, she dreamed of setting her spirit 
free at any rate, of cultivating at least her 
intellectual powers. Yet the premises of 
science have sought to deny her even that. 

Now from remotest times woman has 
worked as hard as man and often harder, a 



THE WAR ON FEMINISM 85 

fact which should win recognition for her 
physical strength. When man in the savage 
state hunted and battled to appease his hun- 
ger, woman often hunted and fought with 
him as his companion, carrying the slain 
beast on her shoulders ; or she stayed at home 
and spun all the linen for the family's 
clothes. Even her state of bondage required 
intelligence and devotion; and when, later, 
the family was established on a lawful basis, 
she had to perfect her talents more and more. 
Long ages passed. In time, man no lon- 
ger had to battle daily for subsistence. A 
succession of inventions gradually modified 
his way of life. He began to found liberal 
professions, he informed himself, and devel- 
oped his power and his authority, all the 
time that woman continued bound down by 
her duties as wife and mother. A time came 
when woman learned special employments 
and made them her own; but man took these 
up too — the needle, and the making of 



86 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

clothes, cooking and hair-dressing and the 
rest. That is why, ever since the XVIIIth 
century, women have tried to make them- 
selves felt in letters and in art. That is why, 
and the Revolution helped in this, woman 
has dreamed of claiming equal rights with 
men. To-day, as the result of schools and 
education, women realize that they can exert 
their faculties to better advantage than ever 
before. They have outgrown the time when 
man absorbed all occupations and there was 
nothing for a woman to do but get married, 
if possible, before the bloom of her youth was 
lost to her. 

Sad indeed, was woman's fate when she 
had no legal escape from bondage but to 
marry for money or submit herself to pros- 
titution. 

Whatever certain philosophers and anti- 
suffragettes may say, if the physique of 
woman has grown weaker with the ages, 
it has been due solely to the fact that her 



THE WAR ON FEMINISM 87 

vigor has been permitted to go to waste, and 
her moral personality along with it. 

In spite of all this, throughout the prog- 
ress of science, with its innovations of all 
kinds, its economic and social changes in 
daily life ; throughout the growing complex- 
ity of new modes of existence, woman never- 
theless began to make her influence felt, 
became conscious of it, and fortified it by 
study, by increased method and experience. 

Strindberg, the woman-hater, when he 
declared woman "incapable of acquiring 
complete knowledge on any subject what- 
soever," said something very foolish. The 
contrary is shown by the fact that in college, 
in art or at the bar, women frequently prove 
themselves, if not superior to men, at least 
their equals. 

It must be remembered that for hundreds 
of years, even in highly civilized countries, 
women have been kept below men in the 
matter of education. Considering how far 



88 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

behind her rival she started in the race, what 
she has accomplished since gives the lie to 
those who declare she is not man's equal. It 
refutes those who will not believe that equal- 
ity, from being originally a law of nature, 
has become a principle of existence in our 
modern society. 

If it be true that several generations must 
pass before a high standard of physical per- 
fection is attained, the same is true of moral 
and intellectual qualities. Woman, if only 
because she is now conscious of her ego, is 
destined henceforth to fill a more important 
place in the life of nations. 

No longer a kind of social parasite, 
woman intends henceforth to regulate her 
life for herself. If she no longer wears the 
breastplate as in the days of the Teutons, or 
the helmet and sword, so as to fight by man's 
side, none the less she is making herself his 
equal on an intellectual footing. Man may 
continue to advance in science and in art, 



THE WAR ON FEMINISM 89 

but that is no reason why he should take ad- 
vantage of the alleged inferiority of woman. 

In short, woman to-day, by aspiring to 
range with man in fields of knowledge that 
he has hitherto arrogated to himself, by 
evincing a desire to try her judgment and 
prove her taste and skill, is only vindicating 
her rights. 

"While in man," says Louis Dimier, 
"taste, which is a spiritual quality, precedes 
and controls skill, the mastery of one's 
means; in woman, on the contrary, it seems 
to be skill that precedes and leads to taste. 
It can literally be said that a woman has a 
feeling for the beautiful at her fingertips. 
Besides, almost all women infallibly and 
necessarily give full rein to their capacity 
for doing things, while a man may all his 
life content himself with the exercise of his 
critical faculties." 

Indisputably, woman is fundamentally 
man's equal. Stunted and checked till re- 



90 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

cently by special customs that made her 
something of no account, she aspires now, 
thanks to the diffusion of instruction, the 
confusion of classes, the change in social 
conditions, to become a respected artisan, a 
doer of things worth while. Born to a new 
life, she will no longer be the jealous adver- 
sary of man, but rather his valued coadjutor, 
and none the less his courageous sharer of 
joys and sorrows. 




The Equalization of 
Classes Through Education 




The Equalization of 
Classes Through Education 

'DUCATIOX, which consists in 
the progressive adaptation of hu- 
manity to the conditions of social 
life, has been so generally and strongly 
developed in our modern civilization that, if 
it has not created absolute equality among 
the classes, it has at least drawn the aristoc- 
racy, the middle classes, and the people 
nearer together in a common effort toward 
individual expression. 

There is observable everywhere, and un- 
deniably, a very effective phase of this grow- 
ing equality, arising from a multiplicity of 
causes, among which may be specially men- 



94 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

tioned the cutting up of large fortunes, the 
growing importance of the labor unions, and 
the competition which has been introduced 
into all trades and liberal professions. 

There is scarcely anything left of the 
ancient status of the nations: the abolition 
of slavery has transformed the old theory of 
servitude ; compulsory instruction has raised 
the level of the lower classes ; the first stone 
of the new social edifice has been laid. But 
humanity, in gaining a higher conscience, 
a new ideal, has made for itself a new heart, 
created needs for which the old instincts are 
insufficient. Capitalists, manufacturers, 
merchants, the poor, workmen of all kinds, 
face each other now, alive to their rights, if 
not always to their duties, inspired by new 
necessities, mingling in a common life at the 
same time that they strive among themselves 
industrially. 

The populace, whose whole effort used to 
be put forth in the struggle for existence, is 



THE EQUALIZATION OF CLASSES 95 

trying to emancipate itself; the social flood 
has risen, swamping those special classes that 
had hitherto monopolized stock- jobbing and 
money-making; the labor unions, in their 
war with capital, are playing the part of 
capitalists themselves; the working class, 
thanks to better and better education, has 
thrust some of its members forward into 
higher positions; the middle classes devote 
themselves to capturing public offices; and 
by an inevitable reaction the aristocracy, 
whose ancestral rights and prerogatives, as 
well as their fortunes, have been curtailed, 
turn to trade and commerce. 

This does not mean that a perfect equilib- 
rium has been established, for I am of the 
opinion of Jean Labor: "Plutocracy is, per- 
haps, preparing for the future a dominion 
even more crushing, more corrupt, and more 
incapable — through the influence of the 
press, which it will hold completely in its 
power — than that of any of the old aristocra- 



96 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

cies or autocracies, which at least originated 
in splendid human force or noble ambition 
for power." 

But since ignorance no longer directs 
men's relations with one another an average 
of equality in action has been established in 
modern society, and must be reckoned with. 
Tf the lower classes have climbed the ladder 
into regions formerly preempted by the up- 
per classes, these, on the other hand, have 
not hesitated to descend from the heights 
to which the prejudices of their rank con- 
fined them, and invade the professions and 
business in their search for occupation. 

A grandee does not consider himself de- 
graded if he becomes the head of an automo- 
bile factory ; a noble may interest himself in 
commercial pursuits ; a prince of royal blood 
is willing to have the produce of his vine- 
yards or his fields sold under his own name. 

With woman it is the same. Thinking 
more, drawn on by the need of making her- 



THE EQUALIZATION OF CLASSES 97 

self more useful to society, yielding more 
now than formerly to the necessity of indi- 
vidual effort, the woman of the middle 
classes fits herself sometimes even for the 
requirements of science. Great ladies and 
princesses are no longer ashamed to earn 
money in the industrial arts, in painting or 
in literature. 

And the new social conditions will prevail 
in proportion as education becomes more 
perfect and man more deeply conscious of 
a sense of justice as Herbert Spencer con- 
strues it — that is to say, a sense of personal 
responsibility at one with the spirit of social 
cooperation. 

Complete equality between the sexes will 
never exist, of course: — only a relative 
equality, based on mutually liberal ideas that 
hurt neither one sex nor the other. 

It must not be forgotten that social peace 
springs from the balancing of various rights 
and duties, and that the division must be 



93 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

equitably arranged. One must take into 
consideration the fact that the humblest 
workman, like the most famous engineer, 
the greatest inventor, the loftiest writer or 
the most noted stateman, works for the ulti- 
mate good of society; that each is the equal 
of the other in moral duties as in moral 
rights. 

Education, that leveller of castes and dis- 
penser of justice and peaceful bounty, must 
grow out of a fund of individual experiences 
contributing all of them to the experience of 
the social whole. It must come to each of us 
as much through himself as through others, 
and reach us all moreover by the road of 
reason. 

"It is by the synthesis of all methods of 
education and hygiene," says the author of 
Heroic Pessimism, "by the synthetic efforts 
of all educators and hygienists, that pro- 
found reforms and great physical, intellectu- 
al and moral progress in the conduct of 
human life, will be brought about." 



Socialism 




Socialism 

S distinguished from individual- 
ism, socialism has in mind the 
idea of a time when everything 
that pertains to force— capital, property, 
work, etc.- — shall have undergone a kind of 
process of socialization. In general, the term 
signifies a kind of social covenant between 
the various members of society. 

Originating in the XVIIIth century, so- 
cialism pure and simple, intended primarily 
to remould the various classes of society into 
one social entity, is now divided into various 
different camps, carrying on a hostility with 
each other that reminds one of the jarring 
members of a royal family. We have the 



102 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

socialism of the followers of Blanc, some- 
what worn out now, but still retaining its 
partisans; opportunist socialism, Marxian 
socialism, agrarian socialism, parliamentary 
socialism, English municipal socialism, col- 
lectivist socialism, state socialism, Christian 
socialism, the socialism of the pulpit — and 
who knows what else. 

This difference over the first principle of 
socialism, the regulation of society, shows 
how difficult it is to piece together any new 
social mechanism that will satisfy everyone. 

In my opinion the difficulty is, first of all, 
to hit upon some means of association by 
which the person and the possessions of each 
associated member will be defended and pro- 
tected with united strength, in which, certain 
stipulated obligations excepted, each mem- 
ber, in unison with all the others, will never- 
theless owe obedience to himself alone and 
retain full liberty of action. 

It should come to pass that no one would 



SOCIALISM 103 



be rich enough to buy anyone else and reduce 
him to servitude, and no one poor enough to 
be obliged to sell himself. 

It should not be possible for any man to 
say : I am hungry and I do not know how I 
am to get food ; I am cold and I do not know 
where I can get warm ; I have no shelter and 
I do not know where to lay my head. And 
no woman should have to resort to prostitu- 
tion to escape destitution. 

Man, no longer obliged to hire out his 
physical strength or his intellect, and 
woman, no longer obliged to traffic in 
her sex, would enjoy security in their lives, 
and a kind of equality would be established 
among them. 

But this equality — is it not a chimera? 
Can it exist in practice? Are not abuses 
inevitable? How can everybody's thoughts 
and duties be so regulated as to delimit the 
wealth and power of the great, or the avarice 
and covetousness of the lowly? 



104 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

The problem of socialism is to force upon 
society an economical equality that will 
satisfy each individual in it; in which he who 
has climbed up one or two rungs of the social 
ladder need not envy those who are already 
at the top. Everything that engenders dis- 
content or envy or desire for vengeance be- 
tween the classes, forced into constant rela- 
tions with each other as they are, must be 
done away with. Much mischief would be 
avoided in that way. But it would still be 
necessary to turn aside opposing currents, 
to base socialism on "a simplification of 
life," holding to intellectualism all the time 
as its definite goal. 

"The characteristic quality of the social or- 
ganism," says Nicati, "is that it exists as an 
intellectual force: a trusted intermediary 
between individuals, whence all activity 
originally emanates and upon whom all ac- 
tivity ultimately and indubitably returns, 
just as the emotional mind intervenes 



SOCIALISM 105 



between incoming thoughts or impressions 
and outgoing emotions, or expressions. 

"The functioning of this natural organism 
conforms to the religious principles that 
determine its formation and its deeds. 

"The final object of this organism is to 
guide men to harmony, just as intelligence 
guides the emotions to harmony, and to 
unite them in a general effort toward equi- 
librium. 

"The doctrine of intellectualism can, then, 
be defined as a natural social organization 
the object of which is the religious pursuit 
of good, — remembering that by 'religious 9 
we mean that which conforms to the natural 
mechanism of social relations : and by 'good 9 
the necessary and natural aim of complete 
harmony, equilibrium. 99 

And yet, it seems to me in point of fact, 
that social equilibrium is no better estab- 
lished now than it was before. The scales 
that overbalanced on one side, now overbal- 



106 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

ance on the other. The inconveniences of 
instability remain. 

Why, then, should the wealthy classes be 
expected to strip themselves completely only 
that another class may step into their shoes ? 
Is not absolutely the same result attained 
whether the inequality be at the top or at 
the bottom, whether it is attained by a down- 
ward or an upward movement? Is not the 
despotism of the multitude as dangerous as 
that of the favored few? 

It may be true that every man has a 
natural right to what he needs, but it is true 
no less that his "right 95 is limited by his 
necessities. 

Theories to the contrary notwithstanding 
the social organization of humanity is not 
yet perfected, and will not be, as long as 
Society fails to realize that the chief end and 
aim of its existence is the satisfaction of each 
individual's needs in turn. 



The Working Classes 



The Working Classes 




HE role which the working man 
plays in modern society is one of 
the utmost importance. Produc- 
ers of national wealth, they are part of an 
arterial system by means of which the 
national blood and heart exert their func- 
tions. Jean Lahor has said: "The wealth 
and power and glory of a country are in 
great part the product of the humblest of 
her children, artisans, laborers, obscure sol- 
diers, unknown heroes of whom no one 
speaks, who are as mute in life as they must 
be at last in the silences of death." 

And John Lubbock has said on his part : 
"It is an interesting example of human 



110 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

solidarity, and an encouragement for those 
who can not pretend to any genius, to think 
that on the whole, and with scarcely any 
exceptions, the periods of greatest progress 
have usually been those in which the people 
of a nation have been united in a common 
belief and purpose. Progress, in other 
words, has been due not so much to the exer- 
tions of superior minds as to the common 
effort of thousands of ordinary men, not to 
the genius of one man alone, but to the labor 
of all the people." 

If, then, the workman is a great factor in 
national power, it is only right that he 
should engross the attention of thinkers in 
social problems. One fact demands recog- 
nition: that the education of the modern 
workman is not yet consonant with the place 
he fills in the state. 

I dream of schools for the children of the 
working classes, schools planned especially 
for them, in which the place the child is to 



THE WORKING CLASSES 111 

play in his future work is made a kind of 
religion, where the employer of the future 
shall figure as a kind of beneficent protector. 
The child who is to become the workman of 
the future must understand from his earliest 
years that he is not merely a passive instru- 
ment, but a most active element of society. 
Pride in his employment must be inculcated 
in him, not bitterness and hatred, or envy of 
those higher classes that are as socially vital 
an element in their way as he is in his. The 
working classes — though this is something 
that socialism and evolutionism have not yet 
understood the need of — very properly form 
a special major class in a nation, not to be 
excluded from the exercise of their rights, 
but rather, because they are the hardest 
working and least happy class of all, to in- 
sure advantages for them. 

The nations of the earth ought to realize 
more keenly than they do that their main 
source of strength is the laboring man ; they 



112 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

ought to unite in making him the object of 
constant administrative solicitude, with re- 
wards according to his deserts and help as 
his need demands it. 

The health of a nation on the whole de- 
pends so much on that of its working popu- 
lation, that I believe the day will come when 
sanitary dwellings, public baths, cheap lava- 
tories, public parks as in America, and 
working men's clubs, with the advantages of 
mental and moral training gained through 
them, will be regarded as national necessities. 

It is very strange that democratic coun- 
tries so often neglect the most urgent re- 
forms, so often prove themselves more slow 
than aristocracies like England to agitate 
improvements for that humble class which is 
yet in point of numbers and of industry the 
strongest of them all. 

Compare, for instance, the hospitals of 
France with those of England, of Germany, 
or even those of Russia; we can readily 



THE WORKING CLASSES 113 

see which has the advantage of the com- 
parison. 

The idea of houses specially built for 
working men originated in France, they tell 
us. I admit that, but they w r ere not actually 
built in France till after England and Bel- 
gium had shown the w 7 ay. Where in France 
can one find those "garden cities" that Eng- 
land and America rejoice in? It is not only 
in the matter of food supply that the French 
laboring man need envy the lot of his Eng- 
lish neighbor. Germany and Belgium, too, 
have had their laborers' retreats for some 
time. 

The working man tied down by his unre- 
mitting toil, kept too much away from 
people of higher education and mentality, 
needs the chance to get away from himself if 
he is to derive any personal benefit from it 
all, or develop a proper taste for family life. 

When legislators, rulers, educators and 
employers see to it at last that a value and 



114 THE THREAD OP LIFE 

respect consonant with his social value are 
rendered to the working man, that day a 
thousand spontaneous and ingenious reforms 
will spring into life. 

It seems clear to me that in working 
men's communities, each dwelling may be- 
come a temple of fraternity. I cite an 
example of the sort of thing that might be 
done. A workman marries; he and his 
consort live in a little house that becomes 
inadequate after the birth of their children, 
and so not hygienically practicable. Near 
him is another workman whose house, now 
that his children have grown up and gone 
their way, is too large for him. Disencum- 
bered of his family he exchanges houses with 
the man whose family is still growing: — a 
fraternal exchange according to individual 
exigencies, with relative happiness for every- 
body, and hygienic conditions for all. 

Utopia! I hear some one exclaim. Why? 
In reality nothing can be simpler. But un- 
happily, simplicity is the foe of reason. 



Servants 



Servants 




II\CE the abolition of slavery 
domestic service has assumed con- 
tinually new and more oppressive 
forms, until now as an institution it threat- 
ens to disappear completely. The words 
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, which some 
do not understand at all and others misinter- 
pret, are responsible for great unrest in 
society. The domestic of the past, a man or 
woman working for wages yet forming an 
integral part of the family, no longer exists. 
As ideas of loyalty gave way to false 
conceptions of liberty, servants steadily 



118 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

altered their code of manners, and have 
now become intolerable. To-day, for people 
of moderate means, the dearth of servants 
presents a serious problem, although fortu- 
nately the increasing tendency toward 
specialization assures us the service, for the 
least household need, of women who go out 
to work by the day. 

We take an active interest in houses for 
workmen, we have in all good faith sought 
to realize the vision of a better future for 
those in humble walks of life ; why, then, do 
Ave not concern ourselves with the flats and 
apartment houses in which promiscuous 
living has become one of the principal im- 
pediments to that "good and faithful ser- 
vice" so greatly prized by our forefathers? 

In our day, servants looking upon them- 
selves as a particular kind of "employee," 
are exacting, intractable, and highly spe- 
cialized in their domestic functions. Except 
in palaces and large private houses where 



SERVANTS 119 



the staff is continually renewed and wages 
are high, good service is no longer met with. 

In such establishments they form a legion 
apart, in which each is occupied with his 
own affairs and not in direct touch every 
minute of the day with the master or 
mistress. Under such circumstances the 
trying relation of man and master, of master 
and man, is well-nigh avoided. 

The most serious problem of all is that of 
small households in the flat houses of large 
cities, in which, to save space, masters and 
servants are herded together in small apart- 
ments abounding in glass doors and thin 
partitions. Now, to have the master re- 
spected in his private life and secure willing 
obedience from a servant, there must be a 
material distance between them, proportion- 
ate to their moral and intellectual separation. 

"No one is a hero to his valet," says the 
proverb. It is unfortunately a true one, and 
emphasizes an evil which has grown until it 



120 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

has become impossible for apartment house 
dwellers to have good servants at all. 

In America there is a practice by which 
this question is in a fair way to be solved. In 
England the example set by the United 
States is now being followed; the Con- 
tinent, in its turn, should follow a prac- 
tical measure that ensures independence fox* 
both employer and employed — namely, the 
plan of "service" by the hour; an arrange- 
ment which, though it does not mean that 
domestic service in its present form will dis- 
appear completely, promises to avert the 
menace of finding ourselves without any 
service at all. 

Like all innovations, this suggestion will 
immediately frighten some people, and make 
others smile; it will seem paradoxical, not- 
withstanding its simplicity. I want, how- 
ever, to explain my idea of it. 

It is an established fact that we have be- 
come slaves to our servants, who impose 



SERVANTS 191 



lordly conditions on us when they enter our 
service, compelling us to accede to their un- 
reasonable demands under pain of ostracism 
by the whole servant class. In America — I 
cite typical examples — things have come to 
such a pass that the family cannot have meals 
at home on Sundays, because the "chef" or 
cook, spends his Sundays in the country; in 
England, chambermaids refuse to wait up in 
the evening for the return of their mistresses. 
(I know a lady, with neither children nor 
husband, who had to go to bed with her 
clothes on, because her maid, barricaded in 
her own room, would not get up to unfasten 
her corsage!) In Germany servants exact a 
promise from their employers to be allowed 
certain evenings on which to attend masked 
balls; here, in France, the weekly, or bi- 
weekly outing is one of the least of the 
inconveniences to which the servant class 
subjects us. 

Yet if people living in apartment houses 



122 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

can call a nurse in case of emergency, and 
employ a watchman to prevent robbery, 
why cannot the most essential things be sent 
out for too ? 

"Service by the Hour" would have this ad- 
vantage, that it would furnish regular at- 
tendance, and also, by specializing, give 
servants better wages: they would not be 
under the necessity of obeying the commands 
of any one master, or one mistress all day 
long; but could choose whom to serve, just 
as a master chooses his employees. Both 
sides would have more liberty. On the one 
hand work conscientiously performed, on 
the other perfect peace of mind, less bitter- 
ness in mutual relations, more equity for 
everyone, would result. Promiscuous asso- 
ciation of mistress and maid would be abol- 
ished, there would be no more slovenly, re- 
luctant cleaning, no more fear of imperti- 
nence, no temper shown over work badly 
done, or not done at all. 



SERVANTS 123 



If you can have in a masseur or a mas- 
seuse or even someone to give you a bath, a 
hairdresser, a manicure, a pedicure, a wo- 
man to pack up your things, a vacuum 
cleaner, a man to polish your floors — what 
is there left for your servants to do? If a 
woman comes for your dresses and takes 
them to be pressed and refurbished, and 
a valet does the same for your husband's 
suits, while a bootblack cares for the shoes, 
are not the most important things attended 
to? 

Companies for "Service by the Hour" 
could be formed in various parts of cities, so 
that we could, at our own pleasure, telephone 
to one of them when we wanted a bath, or to 
be dressed, or to have our hair arranged, or 
our housework done, and so on. 

What a pleasure to feel free in our own 
homes, to know that we were no longer spied 
upon, that we were our own masters. . . . 
with no flunkeys ! 



124 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

But the expense, someone says! On the 
contrary, if you calculate how much the ser- 
vants quartered in your house cost you, not 
to mention the little things they may add to 
many of your bills, you will come to the con- 
clusion that "service by the hour," besides 
the advantage to the servants of gaining 
them better pay for less working time, 
means a reduction of the master's expenses 
all around. 

Already there are modern apartment 
houses in which one kitchen serves for all the 
tenants. You appoint the hours for meals, 
state the number of your guests, and they 
are served regularly at the appointed time. 

The postman comes up to your apartment 
in the elevator, unless a lock-box be reserv- 
ed for each tenant, etc., etc. 

"Service b}^ the Hour" would do away 
with a thousand inconveniences, some of 
them annoying through their constant repe- 
tition, others quite serious, as for example, 



SERVANTS 



125 



in England, where the testimony of servants 
is of so much effect in divorce cases. 

With "Service by the Hour" there would 
be an end to spying, to petty revenge, to 
disgraceful compromises. The lower classes 
have shaken off the yoke of their servitude, 
then why should we remain victims to the 
new domestic conditions ourselves? 

No real happiness can be had without 
independence; let us each, therefore, strive 
for individual liberty. 

In benefiting ourselves in this way, hu- 
manitarian ends would in no way be sub- 
verted, for after all, the best interests of a 
community are served by guarding the 
liberty of each individual, whatever his class. 




International Schools 




International Schools 



s&Jm 



OW that the nations of the world 
fraternize in science, commerce, 
and industry, now that they are 
more or less in economic partnership, and 
collective labor without regard to nationality 
has become the means of material and moral 
progress for every individual, the founding 
of international schools in the different 
civilized countries is essential. Nurseries of 
the intelligence and the will, such institutions 
would bring pupils together under one 
system of rational instruction and expose 



180 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

them to the same tests. Thus there would be 
an interchange of individuality among the 
nations, and race hatred would give place to 
a regard for common rights and the moral 
conduct of society. 

Armed peace, costly though it be for 
every nation, is a boon to modern times. By 
preserving the integrity of its territory, each 
country is more at liberty to join with its 
neighbor in that higher conception of evolu- 
tion that urges the nations on toward eco- 
nomic partnership. 

Formerly, if we may take France as an 
example, the provinces, divided by their own 
particular and immediate interests, detested 
one another. They were separated by the 
barriers of antagonistic temperaments and 
different customs; although they spoke the 
same language each remained a stranger 
to the other. As successive agreements 
drew them closer together, each coun- 
try attained to a certain unity of thought, 



INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS 131 

and then the idea of a rigid frontier between 
nation and nation grew gradually weaker, 
until to-daj^ a united humanity looks toward 
an education of the individual upon a basis 
of internationalism. We hope that future 
generations, freed from excessive patriotism, 
will attain to what I may call a geographic 
fraternity, and in the achievement of this 
purpose, nothing would be so valuable as 
the founding of international schools in 
which the varying currents of ideas should 
solve the great problem of comparative 
education. 

Let us imagine such schools in every 
country. Young men and girls, sent abroad 
but still required to follow the course of 
study prevailing in their own land, would 
find their education supplemented by 
intellectual intercourse with boys and girls 
m the foreign school. Their horizons would 
be enlarged; they would become cosmopoli- 
tans without effort, reaping the advantages 



132 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

of an environment favorable to the develop- 
ment of their personality; and they would 
return at last to their homes, equipped with 
self-reliance and clear understanding. 
Moreover, they would have that knowledge 
of foreign tongues so essential to the ad- 
vancement of commerce, industry, literature 
and the arts. 

The young man or girl brought up in this 
way, with a proper sense of international 
relationships, would be impelled to special 
effort each in his or her proper field. In- 
fallibly it would result that they would be 
good servants of their country at an age 
when ordinarily they would be dreaming of 
globe-trotting, wanting to get away from 
themselves but without ability to profit by 
that interchange of ideas and customs which 
the international school, at an age when, by 
a natural law, assimilation is mere play, 
would guarantee them. 

If we consider how many expensive jour- 



INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS 133 

neys made by professional or business men 
of sedentary lives after their education has 
been completed, prove well-nigh useless, we 
shall appreciate the advantages which would 
accrue from the interchange among the na- 
tions of pupils who are young, tractable and 
capable of acquiring more quickly and thor- 
oughly the elements of a complete educa- 
tion. 

It goes without saying that each of our 
parties that is sent abroad should be headed 
by professors of its own language and nation, 
to continue the studies prescribed in the 
curriculum of the fatherland. Living in 
the midst of strangers, outside of the classes, 
these colonists, without effort would acquire 
another language, would be introduced 
to new manners and new ideas, and 
enrich their minds by a thousand bits of 
knowledge of use in the maturing of their 
own thought. In this way each, without 
losing touch with his own country, would 



134 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

benefit by the constant presentation of sub- 
jects for comparison and analysis. 

Saint-Beuve conceived of something of 
this sort when he said on the eve of the 
Franco-Prussian War of 1870: "They are 
preparing for war between the two greatest 
nations of Europe. . . . They would 
do better to found two schools, one in Berlin, 
the other in Paris. The best of our young 
scientists should strengthen themselves in the 
laboratories of Berlin, which are better 
equipped than ours; the Prussians should 
seek refinement from our French breeding. 
. . In fact, in any branch of human 

activity, the difficulty between countries is 
to understand each other. Whether it is 
medicine or industry, commerce or educa- 
tion, how much good work along the same 
lines is never heard of in other countries, 
and how much is progress retarded, owing 
to this national exclusiveness ! With inter- 
national schools, the mutual solution of 



INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS 135 

problems .would be possible, because in ad- 
dition to the sharing of education there 
would be an interchange of instruction. 

In commerce and industry, especially, 
international transactions would not only be 
on a larger scale but could be more con- 
veniently carried on. 

Through uniformity of customs and com- 
munity of ideas and sentiments in the field 
of common welfare, international law could 
not fail to insure peace, and at the same time 
encourage friendly rivalry and emulation, 
on which all progress depends. Autocracy, 
democracy, imperialism, all would be merg- 
ed in the one desire for a better future. 

The day that equality of effort among 
nations becomes the rule, the wealth of the 
world will increase tenfold, merely by the 
labor of minds which have become cosmo- 
politan. 



The Necessity of Religion 

and its Influence upon 

the People 



The Necessity of Religion 

and its Influence upon 

the People 

ELIGION is neither an aggrega- 
tion of national laws nor a body 
of philosophical dogma. It is of 
? ar higher worth than it appears in the repre- 
sentations of current doctrine. "To throw 
a sudden light on a man and catch him by 
surprise in his religion — that is the way to 
discern the code of moral judgments and 
experiences that govern his daily life. In 
the same way, applied to society, religion is 
signified in those deeds that are emblematic 
of the relations between individuals; or, to 




140 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

put it in more ordinary phrase, it constitutes 
the principles of social harmony/' 

In giving us this definition Dr. Nicati had 
no particular religion in mind, but the gen- 
eral sum of all religions that make for some 
code of morality. 

The religious idea, though the rulers of 
France now consider it to have outlived its 
usefulness, is nevertheless of undeniable im- 
portance, because the untutored, and all 
people whose brains are not nourished with 
knowledge, need some ideal guidance and 
restraint. And what a powerful restraint it 
is, this fear of eternal punishment, what an 
incentive the hope of an everlasting reward ! 
! All the rhetoricians may talk as they like, 
materialists may argue as they please: the 
fact remains that our greatest men, in 
line with the Littres, the Taines, the Renans 
and many others, all declare the people must 
have a religion, if only as a system of morals. 
I shall not attempt to discuss the evolu- 



NECESSITY OF RELIGION 141 

tion of religions, much less that of Rome, 
which from the nature of its origin still con- 
stitutes the moral strength of the Latin peo- 
ples. It seems to be a fact just the same that 
in France, in spite of compulsory secular 
education, crime has increased alarmingly, 
whereas in England, as that fine thinker Sir 
John Lubbock has lately called to our 
attention, they have had to close some of 
their prisons for lack of prisoners. 

Be not deceived — crime in France is in 
direct ratio to the lowering of the moral 
standards ; the comparative absence of crime 
in England is due to the respect shown there 
for every religious sect, provided only that 
it inculcates religious sentiments in the 
young, that is to say, fear of punishment for 
wrongdoing, and some hope of reward for 
virtue. 

No matter how greatly education, gener- 
ation after generation, may develop the 
moral intelligence, religion, which after all 



142 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

is the disciplining of the passions, must ne- 
cessarily endure. 

"We have/' says the author of Self Edu- 
cation, "enough schools of the kind that pro- 
vide general information, and furnish 
technical knowledge in all branches; what 
we need are schools to mould men." The 
Catholic Church might have remained such 
a school if it had not used its power for 
political ends. 

In the depths of every soul there is 
always some religion, and for this reason, 
according to Maurice de Fleury, "modern 
thinkers who have lost their faith, and believe 
only in the freedom of the human will, end 
by drawing near again to the teachings of 
the church." 

Rational morality, the result of the culti- 
vation of the mind, suffices for the strong. 
It soothes them with a thousand illusions 
and childish fancies; but it is true, too, that 
even among past masters in science, art or 



NECESSITY OF RELIGION 143 

politics there may be minds excitable or lack- 
ing in emotional "self-control," who must 
reinforce themselves by religious sentiment. 

No matter what we may say, the "masses' " 
must be considered a "majority of inferiors/' 
Quite independently a "superior minority" 
stands forth, divested of anything dogmatic 
but all the same dedicated to a sort of per- 
sonal religion, that is to say, an ethical intel- 
ligence, from which rational morality 
proceeds. 

Take, for instance, the case of an apostle. 
The inferiority of his disciples is evident, but 
as these disciples advance in their spiritual 
education, they in their turn will become 
preachers and there will be moral equality in 
the group, so that the formation of other 
groups in turn will come about. 

And so it is necessary to give the masses 
a religion that will be a substitute for moral 
law, one capable of reviving in them the hope 
of a better life, one that will comfort them 



144 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

in affliction, and curb their passions. For the 
rest, religious beliefs are nothing but poetic 
materializations of true morality. The ma- 
turing of the soul of the populace contribut- 
ing its share, instruction doubling itself by 
finish, the people of the future will not need 
dogmas other than that natural article of 
faith in oneself without which knowledge can 
not be acquired. 

The moment religion no longer prescribes 
our laws it becomes useless. For many peo- 
ple it is already a dead letter. There is 
nothing to be said, I repeat, on the subject 
of those who regulate their own moral code 
on laws of reason, but what a misfortune is 
the disappearance of religion in the case of 
inferior intelligences which, without precepts 
and examples, cannot distinguish freely be- 
tween right and wrong. 

Among certain nations the philosophers 
founded a religion as long ago as 500 years 
B. C. Did not Confucius reform his coun- 



NECESSITY OF RELIGION 145 

try — reorganize justice and establish a code 
of ethics that has greatly promoted the na- 
tional prosperity? 

Making himself the authorized chief of a 
new sect, he organized a system of upright 
living that has made itself felt to this day. 

The same thing will come about later in 
our occidental countries, but until then, as 
long as we have not replaced the ancient be- 
liefs by any new ideal of morality, the peo- 
ple, great unconscious force that they yet 
remain, will require religious instruction as 
before. 




The Press 



The Press 




HE newspaper, says Eugene Tav- 
ernier, is the pulse of society. 
There is a fundamental truth in 
that, but it is singularly less true than it used 
to be. The press as a whole no longer plays 
the role of social educator. It has become 
completely secularized, and is consequently 
no longer in a position to put forth any real 
moral influence. 

The fact that it sells itself brazenly to 
whomsoever subsidizes it, puts it in the posi- 
tion frequently of attacking the weak and 
blindly supporting the strong and influen- 
tial — a kind of persecution and injustice that 
he who runs may read. 



150 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

Existing conditions have maimed the 
original character of the newspaper. In the 
hands of men more solicitous of their per- 
sonal interests than zealous for the welfare 
of their country or in the search for truth, 
the press has sacrificed everything to busi- 
ness. Money is its main object. Newspa- 
pers are bazaars in which everything is for 
sale, not excluding defamation of our 
enemy's character, if we wish it. Moreover 
the enterprising promoter has made of the 
newspaper man a purveyor of sensational 
news, of paradoxes that mislead public opin- 
ion, of information as deceitful as it is ready. 
The result, curiously enough, in our demo- 
cratic times, when everyone claims the right 
of liberty of speech, is the very opposite — 
that most journalists write not freely, but 
under orders, following the mournful trade 
of impersonal machines. 

Writers worthy of the name, the moment 
they realized that they must bow to the wish- 



THE PRESS 151 



es of mere dealers in soiled paper, ceased 
to contribute to the daily journals. 

The overproduction of newspapers in- 
creases steadily, and the success of many an 
enterprise based on the exploitation of cre- 
dulity, or the fear of scandal, or on outlan- 
dish advertising, is very often in inverse 
ratio to its real worth, so that whole legions of 
ignorant people, Jacks of all trades, have 
taken refuge in journalism, earning a living 
by the products of stupidity. On the mor- 
row of the Commune, Louis Veuillot said of 
the press: "I have been associated with it all 
my life, and I do not like it; I might say that 
I hate it; but it belongs to the respectable 
order of necessary evils. Xewspapers have 
grown so dangerous that there is greater 
safety in a greater number of them. The 
press can be resisted only by the force of its 
own numbers. Let us add torrent to torrent, 
and let them drown each other there in one 
swamp, or let us say, one sea. A swamp 



152 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

has its lagoons, and the sea its moments of 
slumber. Let us see if we cannot build some 
Venice there. . . . " 

Bold controversalist and stubborn fighter 
that he was, Veuillot did not foresee that the 
press, far from losing force through num- 
bers, would rather constitute a state within 
a state, and arrive at such a point and be so 
strongly tinged with corrosive elements, that 
it would be dangerous both to individuals 
and to society. 

It may be urged against me that, modest 
as were its beginnings in the days of Louis 
XIV, the press was as redoubtable under 
the Revolution as it became later, and that 
all regimes have suffered from it. But I 
answer that the vocation of journalism, not- 
withstanding its excesses, was once a veri- 
table priesthood, justifying itself by talent 
and sincerity. There was a time when edi- 
tors had fixed opinions, and fought under 
the same flag with others of their faith. 



THE PRESS 153 



Nowadays we see them shifting from one 
party to another, now defending certain 
views and now others diametrically opposed 
to them. 

In the field of criticism it was once a 
point of honor to show oneself capable of 
aesthetic appreciation. The Theophile Gau- 
tiers, the Sainte Beuves, the Paul de Saint- 
Victors, set little store by their personal pre- 
ferences when it came to rendering homage 
to talent, from whatever source it came. 

Art was a prime consideration for na- 
tures such as these. To-day empty talkers, 
interested in all sorts of shady schemes, freely 
puff up any mediocrity to whom they may 
be in debt. Everything is arranged by a 
system of foregone conclusions. The artist 
is treated as an enemy if he asserts his 
independence and will not call at the cash- 
ier's desk with the price of eulogies and genu- 
flexions. In politics it is the same; whoever, 
in commerce or industry, does not sacrifice 



154 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

to that omnipotent god Publicity, is check- 
mated by an opposition generously supplied 
with banknotes. 

And so it happens, even in a free country, 
that a kind of privileged class, recruited for 
the most part from the failures and intellec- 
tual charlatans, is enabled to place itself 
above the law — the spreading of slander, it 
seems, being regarded only as one way of 
teaching and amusing the public. 

Not long ago there was an outcry over 
the censorship of the press as being an abuse 
of power; then the freedom of voicing even 
subversive opinions was granted and liberty 
at once became license. . . And indeed to- 
day controversial tricks and vulgarity have 
become so great an evil that the least inform- 
ed readers, those who scarcely ever read a 
page, know in advance what will be served 
up to them in politics, art, science, or the base 
jcoin of public scandal. 

Moreover, the idea of advertising has so 



THE PRESS 155 



increased that half the time a newspaper 
article extolling anyone has been paid for 
by the subject of it. Falsehood, under a 
thousand different guises, is distributed 
every day to a host of poor souls that never 
know the difference. 

Xo, before the press can really teach the 
people or lead the masses, it must acquire 
some social, moral and political creed, some 
ideal, frankly sincere and personal, of the 
general aesthetic fitness of things. Every 
opinion that comes from a mind honest and 
frank and independent of commercial inter- 
ests can not help making itself felt sooner or 
later in any society, and that, too, without 
injury to any individual interests or any use- 
less stirring up and agitation of the public. 

Most important of all, if this is to be 
brought about, every newspaper must be 
endowed with substantial capital, raised by 
independent stockholders, honorable men 
whose fortunes and social positions, rather 



156 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

than bargaining and compromise, shall be 
security for success. 

Established on a solid and durable basis 
such as this, the press, notwithstanding na- 
tural differences of opinion, devoted rather 
to the awakening of intelligence than to 
satisfying morbid curiosity, will become 
an admirable instrument for the distribution 
of knowledge. 

For the diffusion of thought, we need zea] 
and eclecticism, not greed and blackmail. 

Once the press frees itself from humbug, 
talented writers in every field will bring it 
the tribute of their observations, thoughts 
and labors ; and a newspaper can then stand 
forth untrammeled by political parties or 
social combinations or individual interests; 
because the press will then represent the 
combined efforts of men well-to-do and edu- 
cated, worthy of their office, and fitted to 
conduct it as a healthy, honest and meritori- 
ous enterprise. 



Morality 



Morality 




lORALIT Y is that branch of met- 
aphysics by the aid of which the 
rules of conduct imposed by cus- 
;om seek to justify themselves; and in most 
cases it is a question not of licenses but of 
constraint. Morality is a science, some will 
tell you; it is an art, say others; for many 
idealists it is still a substitute for reason. 
M. Rodrigues sees in it the "will" which 
binds itself and is bound by others. "Indi- 
vidual freedom," he says, "if there be such a 
thing, plays but a secondary part, is prac- 
tically an insignificant thing, if we consider 
humanity as a whole. Inseparable organi- 



160 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

cally from the individual, interrelated still 
more closely with society, the psychological 
or moral thing called the conscience, when it 
draws upon itself for spiritual guidance, 
finds there only the sum of its surrounding 
influences. It represents a system of ideas, 
to the formation of which it has itself con- 
tributed but a feeble part Be- 
sides, morality has undergone an evolution in 
every way parallel with that of science." 

Beyond a doubt, yes ; morality, like every- 
thing else that pertains to manners and cus- 
toms, social laws and rites and traditions, 
ancestral prejudices, and the desire for lib- 
erty and individual rights, has undergone a 
constant evolution in accordance with its en- 
vironment. 

We are very far to-day from that Kan- 
tian morality that legislated for a being of 
ideal reason and imposed the same duties 
upon all alike. 

After the morality of Epictetus, which 



MORALITY 161 



rested on the idea of liberty, and taught 
that a man could free himself from all de- 
pendence on other men or on nature, and at- 
tain to absolute liberty, by distinguishing be- 
tween the things subject to him and those 
that are not, and discarding the latter as of 
no account; after the morality of Epicurus 
which held that pleasure is man's sovereign 
good, and counselled us to put forth all ef- 
forts in its pursuit provided only that it was 
as much a matter of joyousness of heart 
and mind as of the senses — modern morality 
is a thing of sects and classes entirely, differ- 
ing according to the prejudices of the class 
that practices it. 

The moral code of the middle classes con- 
sists mainly in preserving the unity of the 
community, regardless of individual liberty. 
The middle class family being a sort of com- 
mercial association, its morals are limited to 
an idea of standing by one another, and 
above all defending the community interests. 



162 THE THREAD OP LIFE 

It is a restricted morality, imposing the rule 
of unity on all, and its value is relative 
rather than absolute. 

The moral code of the aristocracy consists 
in preserving untarnished on its coat of arms 
that gilt which it considers of so much im- 
portance. It matters not in what way the 
escutcheon gains in brilliancy, because pride 
in it is a virtue just the same. Repeated 
gildings do not distress the aristocratic con- 
science, the chief duty of an aristocrat be- 
ing to keep up appearances. All in all, such 
a moral code is no more unsound in itself 
than the middle class conception. One is 
the conservation of appearances as the other 
is that of selfish interests. 

The moral code of Royal Courts implies 
the preservation and perpetuation of Court 
traditions. It does not hesitate to sacrifice 
individuals to this one unchanging and im- 
perious cause. It is an exceptional morality, 
that of Courts, above right and beyond duty. 



MORALITY 163 



But just as the middle classes must have 
some sound commercial or industrial sup- 
port, and the aristocracy the brilliancy, 
spurious or authentic, of its coat of arms, and 
Court circles the halo of descent, factitious 
though it be, from some particular stock, so 
must class morality cede day by day to cir- 
cumstances and yield to varying situations. 

Morality, being one of the great manifes- 
tations of human activity, must perforce obey 
the law of life and change from age to age. 
It must adapt itself to successive fashions 
and conditions. Personal interests, egotism, 
pride of birth, ideas of super-humanity, 
must, despite all rules, adapt themselves to 
the new conceptions of altruism and ideal- 
ism; for there is no fixed morality. 

Though it is true that every man carries 
within himself his own morality, he must re- 
member, too, that the ratification of his moral 
judgments by others is one of the most im- 
portant duties of civilization, and one, 



164 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

too, which in our day he must discharge on 
rational principles. 

Nothing perverts men more than letting 
themselves grow envious of socially harmful 
things or persons. 

The personal interests of a merchant do 
not adapt themselves to those of the work- 
man, coats of arms create no envy in the 
minds of artisans; the right called "divine" 
in no wise curtails the rights of the populace. 
On the other hand, sectarian morality is 
often the foe of new ideas of morality aris- 
ing from new social needs ; and for that rea- 
son can not expect to preserve its primitive 
significance, because humanity is constantly 
struggling toward an ideal which, though it 
renews and changes constantly in accord- 
ance with the difficulties of its path, tends 
steadily toward equity and light. 



The Fear of Ridicule 



The Fear of Ridicule 




EAR of ridicule is a terrible and 
powerful weapon against many 
people. Skillfully handled by 
devotees of fashion and convention it weak- 
ens the courage of their convictions and turns 
them oftentimes against their own best inter- 
ests. 

Many people of uncertain social standing 
or undeveloped moral strength, embitter 
their days by worrying over what others 
may say about them. 

If they could only see that nothing simple 
and sincere can be ridiculous, if vanity and 



168 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

self-love did not prevent them from realiz- 
ing that criticism is inevitable, that with well- 
balanced people it not only increases confi- 
dence but oftentimes helps in the attain- 
ment of their special ends, then not only 
would the testimony of others have no ter- 
rors for them, but they would themselves no 
longer try to efface their neighbor's charac- 
ters in the welter of social conventionalities. 

With Emerson they would say: "What I 
ought to do is the thing that concerns me, not 
what people think I should do." 

They would remember these words of 
Bruyere: " 'To do as others do' is a maxim to 
be regarded with suspicion. The moment 
we apply it to other than merely external 
and inconsequential things, to minor matters 
of custom, fashion, or propriety, it nearly 
always means that we must do what is 
wrong.' 5 

A modern thinker, writing anonymously, 
has remarked with some spirit: "If one 



THE FEAR OF RIDICULE 169 

wishes to be a good-fellow, even with those 
who are not so themselves, must he cease to 
be himself? Good-fellowship carried to this 
excess is nothing but foolishness and fraud. 
What on earth becomes of your self-respect 
on such occasions? Dare then, to say what 
you think, if you do think." And I, on my 
part must add: Dare to do whatever seems 
to you good, useful, or reasonable: avoid 
foregone conclusions: be not influenced by 
the opinions of others ; think independently : 
take your own worth into the account: exert 
all your foresight when you encounter 
strange ideas: impose silence on your self- 
conceit: — in a word, drive from you that 
fear of ridicule, which, carried to excess, 
may completely shatter your ambitions or 
ruin your noblest hopes, quenching the bud- 
ding of your happiness and success. What 
is this cringing reverence for what people 
do, this absurd fear of what is not done? 
Why this folly of imitation, this constraint 



170 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

of conscience? Do we not eat and drink 
what we please? Whence comes it, then, that 
our public acts are tainted with hypocrisy? 
Why this eternal bowing to appearances, this 
slavery to conventions that cramp our minds 
and hearts ? 

In the social world fear of being laughed 
at goes to absurd lengths: a man will ac- 
tually break an important appointment, 
even though it were one from which he ex- 
pected some considerable moral or material 
good, rather than appear without the ac- 
coutrements which the world considers 
proper — rather than present himself without 
the hat or the shoes which snobbery for the 
moment has prescribed. 

Women, in whom fear of ridicule is so 
strong and so closely bound up with momen- 
tary whims, will risk their health rather than 
appear unfavorably in other women's eyes. 
If fashion decree that a summer gown be 
worn, they will risk bronchitis and all its con- 



THE FEAR OF RIDICULE 171 

sequences rather than wear something else; 
in winter the same thing; at all costs they 
must not think with their own minds, or feel 
with their own hearts, or live according to 
their own means, or strength, or reason! 

A strange disease indeed is this passive 
submission to the dictates of fashion. Fool- 
ishness, however, is of all time, and Mon- 
taigne in his day truly expressed the same 
situation : "Almost all our opinions are taken 
on trust. . . We are all richer than we think, 
but we are trained to borrow and to search 
for other things; we are led to use another 
rather than to rely upon ourselves. . . We 
neither test our faculties nor understand 
them; we invest ourselves with those of 
others, and let our own grow rusty." 

Yes, truly the fear of ridicule is one of 
the worst possible defects in people's train- 
ing: it causes mistakes that are irreparable, 
destroys character, brings all originality to 
naught. 



112 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

How many marriages that should have 
been happy have turned out badly, though 
quite unnecessarily, on account of in- 
equality in income, age, or birth! For 
even upon the pursuit of happiness, that 
eternal law of nature, the fear of ridicule 
casts its blighting influence. 

It is with the fear of ridicule as it is with 
morality; each man should base his acts on 
things worth while, throw off constraint, be, 
in a word, himself, independent of circum- 
stances and custom, experience and rea- 
son teaching him to maintain the balance be- 
tween his personal privileges and his con- 
science. 




Public Opinion 



Public Opinion 




T is easy in the world to live ac- 
cording to the ways of the world, 
says Emerson; and in solitude to 
live according to oneself. But the great man 
is he who in the world lives according to 
the ideals of his solitude. 

This argument of the master supplies us 
with the hint that self-confidence based on 
thorough-going education and a wide range 
of experience is the best rule of conduct one 
can follow. 

He who is a slave to public opinion lives 
an inconclusive life, because, not being mas- 



176 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

ter of himself, incapable of self-control, he 
has no opinions of his own. 

To bow to public opinion is to abandon in 
advance all effort at right thinking, to ab- 
dicate one's special rights, to be nothing but 
a pale reflection of life, an anomaly. 

To set oneself above public opinion, how- 
ever, is not possible for everyone; since not 
everyone, indeed few people, can throw off 
cheerfully the conventions of society. 

One of the conditions of being independ- 
ent of public opinion is to need no moral 
or material help from any one. I do not 
speak of those free and independent souls 
upon whom fortune has smiled from the 
moment of their birth, but of the great ma- 
jority who through lack of natural stability 
and well seasoned temperament must blind- 
ly follow the course in life laid down for 
them. 

What is public opinion if not a collection 
of widely generalized opinions, rules of ac- 



PUBLIC OPINION 177 

cepted usage, hypocritical virtues, falsehoods 
in disguise? And why should I not have 
opinions of my own, even if they fly in the 
face of the public, when I am conscious of 
rectitude and good sense in my intentions, 
and let my conduct and beliefs stand for 
themselves and whatever they are worth? 

Will public opinion accept any respon- 
sibility for my mistakes ? Will the exception 
prove the rule? Shall I be less worthy, less 
just or faithful, for breaking loose from imi- 
tation, reflection and affectation? 

Why, then, should I deprive myself of 
honest happiness under the pretext that 
public opinion is against me? 

Why should I bow to circumstances not 
of my own making? In short, w r hy should I 
not be myself? 

The craving for general approbation is 
a sign of weakness, a vice of the spirit and 
the conscious self. It is as if you should 
authorize other people to prescribe your 



178 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

duties for you, and impose on you their own 
preconceived ideas and dogmas, their neu- 
tral notions of what is right; as if they 
should limit you to their cult of good ac- 
tions and fine words instead of letting you 
develop a system of your own. 

Misfortunes come to those who submit to 
such contaminating influence. They doom 
themselves to a life of mental misery; they 
drag out an everlasting existence in indeci- 
sion, that cowardice of the soul, never realiz- 
ing that it is with public opinion as with the 
moral code, that each according to national 
environment, heredity and education is 
mean or arbitrary or intolerant. 

The decrees of public opinion are always 
scornful and presumptous. They are not 
the result of any harmony between the 
preaching and the practice of those who 
make them ; and so we should show ourselves 
for what we are, speak our own language 
with sincerity, express our thoughts without 



PUBLIC OPINION 179 

circumlocution, to-day, to-morrow and the 
day after to-morrow! for even if we contra- 
dict ourselves on certain points we only prove 
by that our power of adaptation to what is 
right and best. Let us be loyal to ourselves, 
for only in that way may we conquer that 
secret of subtle personality that fortifies us 
against our neighbor. 

A persevering and well-tempered spirit, a 
sound mind given to quiet meditation and 
reflection, a conscience refined by education 
— these make a character that laughs easily 
at the bugaboo of public opinion, and finds 
its way unharmed through every walk of 
life. 

This state of individualism does not mean 
that we must oppose ourselves systematical- 
ly to all the habits of our age, or set our- 
selves up as foes to accepted truth ; but only 
that, shaking the yoke of public opinion 
from our shoulders, we ought in all gentility 
to make our own opinions felt. 



Prejudice 



Prejudice 




\0 the number of prejudices, which 
are opinions adopted without any 
previous examination of their ac- 
curacy, there is no end. Like religion, pre- 
judice is the leprosy of weak minds, which 
accept without demur moral laws that are 
only relative, dogmas that have no sanction 
in reason, and errors which live and propa- 
gate more vigorously than truth. 

There are persons lacking in judgment 
and discernment who endeavor to do as the 
world does, simply because they are not 



184 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

strong enough to have opinions of their own, 
or pause for reflection, or to consider their 
own actions and acknowledge the folly of 
their weaknesses. 

Undeniably, those whose minds have been 
exercised in the play of ideas are with diffi- 
culty reconciled to prejudice. Since their 
judgment is free, they demand complete 
freedom of action, and consider it intoler- 
able that a multitude of petty obligations 
should interfere with their views and methods 
of thought. 

Prejudice— a kind of mental aberration 
—is a means by which the less intelligent 
assume to measure the ability of others. 
Prejudice, too, the outcome of foolish habits, 
absurd fears and silly superstitions, is the 
cause of many troublesome convictions. Tfc 
is, for example, a popular belief that the 
number thirteen is unlucky, that the song 
of a night-bird forebodes death; that three 
lights bring misfortune; but, in another 



PREJUDICE 185 



sphere of thought, the belief is no less gene- 
ral that persons of exalted birth must in- 
evitably be lacking in the higher kinds of 
intelligence. It is a foregone conclusion 
that they are incapable of intellectual 
achievement, only fitted to shine in a society 
as superficial as it is useless. Let these 
people actually devote themselves to serious 
work in literature or art, and their detrac- 
tors will insist it is most improbable, nay, 
actually impossible for them to accomplish 
anything, high birth being such a notorious 
warrant of incapacity. 

Thus, just as prejudice in the form of 
convention in thought and habit dominates 
the timid soul, so it rules out in advance the 
proof of intellect, and blights a reputation. 

In frivolous society, prejudice is particu- 
larly ineradicable. It creeps into conver- 
sation, and in the sphere of compliment and 
polite phrase reveals itself in all its naked 
ugliness. 



186 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

Let some keen mind appear upon the 
scene, to pierce a prejudice to the quick, 
and it will resist until its disturber is com- 
pelled to depart. The result of folly and of 
fear, prejudice is a parasite springing from 
the brain and has been grafted through the 
centuries from one ignorance upon another. 

Prejudice, still abundant in our time, at- 
tacks everything — art, science, law, individ- 
ual liberty, conscience, truth. 

In sectarian circles is it not considered in- 
disputable that the Jew is incapable of high 
intellectual achievements? Yet, during the 
past twenty-five years the drama has fur- 
nished astounding proofs of the falsehood of 
this assertion. And the scientist — despite all 
his knowledge has contributed to the world, 
do not the prejudiced, who see in him an of- 
fender against divinity, still regard him as 
an enemy? 

In many instances is not the education of 
the people considered a social danger? Are 



PREJUDICE 187 



not new laws designed to guarantee justice 
to everyone regarded as monstrous? Yet 
now that a humane conscience has been de- 
veloped, now that the will has gone to school 
to equity, now that the notion of personal 
responsibility has found a place in our code 
of manners, and moral education has be- 
come rationalistic, it is really strange to see 
persons who not only pretend themselves to 
the possession of intelligence, but are accept- 
ed by others as possessing well-stocked 
minds, easily swallow each absurdity and 
prejudice of the moment. 

Women, it must be said, are for the most 
part enemies of progress. Through atavism 
and habit, they give themselves up to pre- 
judice with a kind of frenzy that captivates 
their superficial souls. Two pernicious fac- 
tors assist in this: jealousy and envy. And 
prejudiced men are no less dangerous, be- 
cause they cannot reason by themselves and 
are not willing to follow the judgment of 



188 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

others, and are unable thus to correct their 
faults. 

From all this, I sometimes think that all 
slaves of prejudice should be compelled to 
live by themselves, separated from the rest 
of the world that is living and thinking 
rightly; until the time came when, dissatis- 
fied with themselves, they might make them- 
selves endurable to others. 




Judgment 



Judgment 




UDGMENT, essentially a func- 
tion of the intelligence, is the 
ability to discern ideas, to establish 
just comparisons between things as they 
really are and things as they appear to be. 
But as the faculty of perception varies ac- 
cording to the nature of the social situation, 
it is hardly possible to formulate a fixed rule 
of judgment, even though in every case it re- 
quires an affirmation. To whatever degree 
our judgment may be cultivated, it can not 
be safely brought to bear upon another with- 



192 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

out applying in our own case first the 
principle of Know Thyself. That an- 
tique apothegm, grown somewhat trite 
now from the unmeaning way in which it 
has been handed down from generation 
to generation, is, nevertheless, for the 
chosen few, superior to any other. Ob- 
viously, one must place direct appeal to 
knowledge beyond all else. Without it, as 
Nicati has said: "A man who neglects to 
question himself, strips himself of all person- 
ality, and counts for no more in the scheme 
of things than inert matter, which has at 
least the faculty of resistance." 

He who lives according to his conscience, 
and follows his own moral law, should be 
satisfied. Sitting in judgment on himself 
he knows well enough whether he has con- 
formed to the standards he has set himself. 
And so we must ever seek within ourselves 
the perfect judgment, recalling those beau- 
tiful words of Thomas a Kempis : 



JUDGMENT 193 



"Have always a good eye to thyself, and 
beware thou judge not lightly other men. 
In judging other men a man oft labour eth 
in vain, oft erreth, and lightly offendeth 
God: but in judging himself and his own 
deeds, he always laboureth fruitfully and to 
his ghostly profit." 

Always, in judging ourselves, we should 
abide, as strictly and logically as our nature 
will permit, by the rules of truth and reason. 
It is to be noted that wit and good memories 
are not always the best instruments for ex- 
act and learned judgment; assimilation is 
the enemy of reflection, and remembrance 
is not thought. 

When we have set our own ideas in order, 
we shall not judge others without taking in- 
to consideration the reasons that may have 
actuated them, what motives, what circum- 
stances may insensibly have modified their 
estimate of what was right or wrong. So 
doing we shall be more kindly, and avoid 



194 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

those wrongs that spring from injustice and 
false judgment. 

Our own morality does not hold us always 
completely under control; it is easy for a 
man to yield to the temptation to absolve 
himself from sin. And so it is but right that 
the notion of what is predetermined supply 
a motive for indulgence toward our fellow 
creatures. 

To be indulgent in particular cases we 
must know our own failings, and not con- 
demn others for what may seem like error 
in our eyes only. 

The first requisite of clear, sane judgment 
is always to take into account one's mental 
life, to confess to oneself one's various moods, 
and combat ceaselessly the evil within us. 

From the point of view of altruism, we 
must consider the person we are judging in 
the light of his environment and circum- 
stances, difficult as it is to appreciate the 
various degrees in character and in sensi- 



JUDGMENT 195 



tiveness, according to which the deed was 
done. That is why historians, at the height 
even of great synthetic activity, so often re- 
cord wrong judgments of the past. In 
their desire to make their characters live 
again, to evoke once more the days that have 
gone, they take a part themselves in it all, 
and love or hate what they should merely ap- 
praise dispassionately. They lack tolerance 
and indulgence simply from following their 
own opinions. They do not measure the 
men of old according to the morals of their 
age, but judge a whole community by a few 
isolated documents, and declare that such 
and such men of bygone times were medi- 
ocre. And yet the truth is that there are no 
greater men to-day than have lived in any 
other ages of the world. Twenty-two cen- 
turies away the men of Plutarch stand out 
as much admired as any of our modern he- 
roes. And in the realm of science, of religion, 
or of philosophy, man has only changed the 



196 



THE THREAD OF LIFE 



names of things without in any manner al- 
tering the nature of judgment or of logic, 
the conditions of happiness or the visible as- 
pects of courage; — without having wrought 
a change in any way within the human ego. 




Moral Courage 



Moral Courage 




I ORAL courage is that special 
force or energy of character which 
drives us to avow and fight for 
those things in which we believe. It is a 
quality, perhaps the rarest in man, that is 
indispensable to a public man, be he states- 
man, military man, or artist, and especially 
to the writer, who must assume responsibil- 
ity and mould opinion. 

I have often heard it said that moral cour- 
age is commensurate with physical develop- 
ment. That is true enough if physical de- 



199 



200 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

velopment be accompanied by perfect health. 
Often we see men, puny in appearance, pos- 
sessed of moral courage denied to the finest 
athletes, if despite the meanness of their per- 
sons, they rejoice in a robust health which 
relieves them of all mental languor and gives 
them a perfect balance. 

But we may go still further. Although 
there may be no scientific method of making 
character, it is certain that we maj^, by an 
exercise of the right instincts and inclinations 
and a careful selection of our ideas and ac- 
tions, cultivate moral courage in ourselves. 
Never has the necessity for the formation of 
character been more imperative than in our 
own times. Character becomes rare as the 
intellect becomes disordered. Dilettan- 
tism kills reason, estheticism wanders with- 
out logic in the field of ideas, prejudice takes 
the place of reflection, caprice dictates moral 
and material interests and undermines the 
will. 



MORAL COURAGE 201 

The essence of the individual, his domi- 
nant trait, is his character, and character be- 
gets moral courage. Dr. Ferrand declares 
that "character is of the greatest importance 
in the life of the individual and in the life of 
those groups into which individuals band 
themselves by natural and social laws: the 
one great power, says Smiles, in the world. 
It is by his oneness of purpose that the man 
of character becomes not only master of 
himself, perhaps a great enough thing to 
have accomplished, but also controls the drift 
of all those within his influence, as a great 
battleship attracts the smaller craft." 
I And there is another thing, too. Acting 
in unison with the intellectual force that 
guides our thoughts and actions is senti- 
ment, the sensibility that ought to enlighten 
the judgment, the thought that fixes the 
responsibility. The man who is governed by 
his own feelings uncontrolled by reason is 
guilty of many an error of judgment and 



202 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

allows himself by just that weakness some- 
times to be unjust as well as untrue. Justice, 
let us not forget, is Truth applied to the 
conduct of life. It is this very lack of the 
idea of justice in the modern conscience that 
brings us daily face to face with the break- 
down of moral courage, whether it was of- 
fensive or defensive in the conflict. 

Politics of late, and the arts and letters as 
well, have furnished us with many a sad ex- 
ample of such failures of moral courage. 
Literary and musical criticism is conspicu- 
ous by its venality; science itself is not ex- 
empt from methods which reason rejects, 
nor is it to private education alone that we 
can attribute a taint of laxity in moral cour- 
age. It is indeed this blind lack of moral 
courage that has transformed liberty into 
revolting bondage. 

Examine parliaments, study castes, dis- 
sect governing bodies, and you will see that 
characters worthy to be the inspirers of the 



MORAL COURAGE 203 

Good, the Beautiful and the True, are 
swamped by a mass of characters who seek 
to run the public conscience to their own in- 
terest and aggrandizement. 

It is the moral courage of the individual 
which makes for the greatness of a people. 
But that particular kind of courage, because 
each is losing his sense of responsibility, and 
beginning to forget justice and truth, is dis- 
appearing, little by little, from the world. 
How few men we see using their authority 
to redeem a wrong or punish a lying villainy, 
or attempting to correct a false judgment! 
Thoughtlessness, hesitation, doubt, lack of 
initiative, indifference, have ousted moral 
courage. And that through faulty educa- 
tion of character. 

For, as Emerson says: 

"No change of circumstances can repair a 
defect of character. What have I gained, 
that I no longer immolate a bull to Jove or 
to Neptune, or a mouse to Hecate ; that I do 



204 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

not tremble before the Eumenides, or the 
Catholic Purgatory, or the Calvinistic Judg- 
ment-day, — if I quake at opinion, the public 
opinion as we call it; or at the threat of 
assault, or contumely, or bad neighbors, or 
poverty, or mutilation, or at the rumor of 
revolution, or of murder? If I quake, what 
matters it what I quake at?" 

Each one of us in his own sphere of action, 
must decide (no matter how it may affect 
him personally) what is just, and shirk no 
struggle in the defense of the public honor, 
and fight every cowardly opinion which 
attacks his own reason as well as the liberty 
of the individual. 




Tradition 



Tradition 




RADITION is the link which 
unites the present with the past, 
and causes the transmission of 
vague remembrances across the ages, facts 
founded perhaps on real bases but broaden- 
ed and distorted by the popular mind in its 
groping for the ideal. 

Tradition is many sided, essentially pagan 
or religious. Ordinarily it shows itself in a 
blind respect for established institutions, a 
thoughtless veneration for familiar symbols ; 
it is the mark of the passive attitude of the 



208 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

feeble human soul dominated by supersti- 
tion. 

It is to certain mental organizations of the 
lowest order that tradition, as absolute dog- 
ma, appeals. 

The inclination to trust to tradition im- 
plies an abject obedience to usage, as well 
as a need of some sort of moral order or cult, 
and it is that which hampers the development 
of such thought as makes her progress. 

In every age, from the time when stories 
were handed down by word of mouth from 
one generation to another, tradition has 
been regarded as truth. That which may be 
a true account at the time of the happening 
of the event, may hardly be such after the 
lapse of considerable time. First causes be- 
come twisted in the handling, and a false In- 
terpretation is inevitable. 

Locke with much reason says: 

"The being and existence of the thing it- 
self is what I call the original truth. A 



TRADITION 209 



credible man vouching his knowledge of it 
is a good proof: but if another equally cred- 
ible do witness it from his report, the testi- 
mony is weaker ; and a third that attests the 
hearsay of an hearsay, is yet less consider- 
able. So that, in traditional truths, each re- 
move weakens the force of the proof; and 
the more hands the tradition has successively 
passed through, the less strength and evi- 
dence does it receive from them." 

That is why tradition, from whatever 
source it springs, constitutes for many a false 
cause, the more dangerous as it seems incon- 
testable. After the establishment of Chris- 
tianity, tradition had all the value of an 
idealism capable of nourishing individual 
action ; under its many forms it invoked a re- 
spect for great moralizing acts, it drew 
closer the ties of family (the Birth of Christ 
is an example) it cemented friendships, put 
a value on the idea of reward for good ac- 
tions as well as penalties for bad, created 



210 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

a relation between justice and fear and joy 
and hope. As times improved the idea of 
Personality developed, social differences be- 
came greater, and tradition adapted itself to 
the various social groups, the simple finding 
consolation in the one, the priest and law- 
maker power in the other. Centuries passed, 
altering manners, changing beliefs, modify- 
ing appetites and desires. In the change, 
tradition as a force grew weaker. 

Even in our days we observe many an 
old tradition, but since every social move- 
ment makes for a freer conscience, just so 
does it weaken tradition until tradition be- 
comes little more than a red letter Fete day 
on a calendar. In spite of the fact that cer- 
tain classes, as such, uphold traditions, the 
evolution of the masses effaces the useless 
ones. The outcome is happy, for, and I re- 
peat it, tradition is the enemy of progress 
in that it dominates knowledge and social 
duty. 



TRADITION 211 



The weakness of pagan and religious 
tradition is to-day apparent enough. Thus, 
for example, have we allowed to fall into 
desuetude the celebration of the anniversaries 
of the death of our loved ones. Xo longer, 
even in Latin countries, where civilization is 
backward, are we apt to see the family of 
the deceased swathe themselves in crepe on 
the fated day and from midnight to mid- 
night bewail the departed. On the con- 
trary, this family tradition has so far lost 
its portent that the mourners hesitate not to 
dance and be gay from the moment the set 
period of mourning has elapsed. That 
anomaly is common in Spain even now. 
Deprive tradition of these outward excres- 
cences and it dies a lingering but natural 
death. 

Rapidly are disappearing the traditions 
which held the villager in bondage. Where 
are to-day the long processions blessing the 
fields, the files of patron saints, the ques- 



212 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

tionings of the fountain, — all the remains of 
the old beliefs ? Where are now, as in Greece 
of old, the bottles in which, upon the day of 
a funeral, each collected his tears? Man, 
conscious of his might and right, has freed 
himself of a thousand obligations sprung 
from the fear which numbs his will. That is 
why those believers in tradition who still 
struggle for the maintenance of ignorance in 
the poor and lowly and of power in those of 
higher place, occupy a position as difficult as 
it is untenable. It is a useless task, for it is 
the people themselves who are the real sus- 
tainers or demolishers of tradition, and the 
people no longer uphold traditions that are 
without some use or value to themselves. 




Criticism 



Criticism 




RITICISM, in the larger sense, is 
the free exercise of the judgment. 
Alike in literary, artistic and in- 
tellectual analysis, that is to say in the study 
of beauty, in philosophy, history and philol- 
ogy, and in the experimental and mathemati- 
cal sciences, criticism is essential, for it brings 
out the value of conceptions and achieve- 
ments. But this same criticism strikes ter- 
ror into many hearts; it thwarts the actions 
of many persons and paralyzes their wills. 
Against this evil, which is far too common 
to-day, we must contend, for it is no more 



215 



216 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

the part of wisdom to invite criticism as a 
means to notoriety than to make a bugaboo 
of it and avoid it through wounded pride. 

I maintain that the expression of an opin- 
ion opposed to our own should not logically 
lessen our efforts, destroy our ambitions, or 
force us into hypocrisy. 

An excellent way to avoid the fear of 
criticism from another is to subject oneself 
to self-criticism, which is the hardest form of 
all to practise, but also the most profitable. 

Through this kind of mental training we 
are enabled to discover more easily the mo- 
tives of external criticism, and either to 
scorn the jealousy or envy which has inspired 
it, or to benefit by the advice which springs 
from an honest perception of our qualities 
and defects. 

A critic, if he is sincere, affirms only what 
he perceives clearly. His personal evidence 
becomes the warrant of his sincerity. 

But, you will say, criticism is frequently 



CRITICISM 517 



the outcome of a rigorous morality. . 
Would you have it the outcome of a culpable 
leniency? When it is rigorous it is a factor 
in self-control; lenient to excess, it can only 
develop vanity. The mission of criticism is 
not to determine our actions, but to judge 
them according to its own standards. In the 
case of a writer, a painter, or a musician, for 
example, it is obvious that at bottom criti- 
cism is only dealing with a matter of taste. 
If it attempts to destroy what is worthy, it 
dishonors itself, and to just that extent 
renders itself useless; if it bestows praise, it 
can only explain it on the ground of per- 
sonal judgment. 

In private, the critic of our actions, delib- 
erate or impulsive, is an inquisitive being 
peering through the veil of circumstance 
into the windows of our souls, and of course, 
unable to see clearly. The dreary experi- 
ences of such a critic are not worth stopping 
to listen to. 



<218 



THE THREAD OF LIFE 



In short, when we are conscious of the 
beauty of our achievements, of the purity of 
our intentions, the dignity of our actions, or 
the simple pleasure of our thoughts, let us 
leave criticism to its work and follow our 
own path. 

Naturally, this does not mean that we must 
despise judicious criticism; for just as in 
politics an opposition is essential to the free 
public discussion of a proposed measure, so 
in private life criticism is a spur to emulation 
and a help to us in attaining the goal we have 
set before us. 




The Danger of Excessive 
Analysis 




The Danger of Excessive 
Analysis 

|F there are not a few who cherish 
an unbounded admiration for 
synthetics, there are many whom 
the passion for analytics drives to the limits 
of exaggeration. 

Surely, if we would escape useless scru- 
ples, as well as irrational desires, we must 
ceaselessly examine our consciences; surely, 
it is a good thing to keep in mind the con- 
sequences, near or remote, of our actions; 
surely, too, we ought by sincerely searching 
out the secret springs which actuate us to cor- 
rect our mistakes and taste the savour of our 



THE THREAD OF LIFE 



good actions, as well as make use of past 
experience to achieve at last real ethical cul- 
ture. 

To examine and analyse oneself, to de- 
velop one's ideal, to bow to the law of men- 
tality is to perfect oneself in that code of 
morals which every man should possess 
within himself. 

On the other hand, if, driven by logic, we 
make a too minute analysis of our actions, 
we run the risk of upsetting the balance of 
our reasoning ; and if we analyse in the same 
fashion exterior influences, we find ourselves 
invalidating our best actions by false esti- 
mates that only weaken the spirit. 

By setting aside half formed ideas from 
the general, comprehensive idea, by ignoring 
the relation of each little action to the com- 
pleted whole, we lose the sense of real analy- 
sis, mistaking quantity for quality, just as 
we lose in the microscope our sense of pro- 
portion. Enlarged and developed, little de- 



THE DANGER OF EXCESSIVE ANALYSIS 223 

fective nothings stamp themselves on our 
mental vision, destroying the harmony and 
beauty of our conception in its entirety. 

I do not deny that to be morally great we 
must think great things ; I know that accom- 
plishment is proportionate to the moral force 
expended, I am well aware that we must be 
ever on the watch; but I do insist that a 
habit of analysing excessively our trifling 
daily acts and our great moral deeds as well, 
numbs the determining faculty, hampers 
our judgment of ourselves and of our neigh- 
bors, and tends to vitiate our minds. 

Do you examine too closely the motives 
which determine men's actions? Then you 
either mistake their moral reason or mar 
their beauty, and you suffer doubly for them 
and for yourself. 

An example: "Have I," you may say to 
yourself, "done right in giving this money in 
charity?" If, step by step, you argue that 
the object of your charity was unworthy and 



2U THE THREAD OF LIFE 

unappreciative, that your action thus was 
useless, you may end by regret at having 
yielded to an altruistic impulse; and so de- 
prive yourself of an instinctive joy and 
satisfaction, besides conveying to other peo- 
ple, quite unjustly, the impression that you 
lack feeling. 

One might cite endless examples : — by ex- 
cessive analysis we may turn an act of devo- 
tion into one of egoism in its narrowest sense, 
an explanation of a base action into an ex- 
cuse for it, a certitude into an hypothesis, a 
sincere affection into a selfish farce. All that 
as regards others; as regards ourselves, we 
shall be drifting into hesitation, into a con- 
founding of our spontaneous ideas, into 
faulty ways of thinking, into constant un- 
easiness and lasting discontent. 

I speak only of the abuse of analysis, for 
normal analysis has its proper place in one's 
mental existence, especially if it is practised 
in a well-ordered and synthetic way. 



THE DANGER OF EXCESSIVE ANALYSIS 225 

"However unnecessary we may consider 
analvsis in many ways," savs Paulhan, "it is 
in certain things of the first importance. It 
is analysis which dominates the minds of 
those who lack the synthetic faculty; who 
must trust to analysis for clear vision, and in 
good part for their understanding of the 
motives of others. It is on analysis, too, that 
Memory, or the memory which segregates 
ideas from impressions, is founded. The 
same is true of criticism, knowledge and ap- 
preciation of art, of science or philosophy. 

Certain kinds of minds, with sensitiveness, 
receptiveness and caution in their composi- 
tion, may well have the analytical faculty de- 
veloped to an unusual degree. Beyond that 
I contend that analysis is dangerous. Analy- 
sis is mainly useful as it limits itself to pre- 
cesion and finesse, to depth rather than to 
shallowness in thought. 



The Law of Compensation 



The Law of Compensation 




HEX, at the beginning of the 
nineteenth century, Azais pub- 
lished his "Compensations of Hu- 
man Destiny," he propounded, in principle, 
this theory: "The destiny of man, considered 
in its entirety, is the work of nature as a 
whole, and all men are equal before that 
destiny." 

La Rochefoucauld, long before, had said : 
"Whatever differences there may be between 
fates there is a certain compensation in good 
and equal which makes them more or less 
alike." A belief in the law of compensation 



230 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

leads to the highest kind of optimism. No 
matter how far many system-makers may 
have advanced, always a law of compensa- 
tion is at work among peoples as well as per- 
sons, just as those who deplore an unhappy 
lot nevertheless taste the compensatory bene- 
fits of vigilance and courage. 

The law of compensation is certainly one 
of the most consoling of beliefs, one of which 
every human soul should feel the influence. 

We may well be surprised at Droz, when 
he says: "The absurd system of compensa- 
tions must produce an inevitable apathy, a 
contempt for the woes of others, and the 
most odious egoism." To be convinced that 
sadness is only joy viewed from the seamy 
side, that suffering only makes us realize the 
better what health means to us, that remem- 
brance doubles regret, does not prevent us, I 
feel sure, from sharing in the joys and sor- 
rows of others. 

On the other hand, altruism, in the practice 



THE LAW OF COMPENSATION 231 

of which so few excel, is no more than an 
overdeveloped egoism — paradoxical as that 
may appear. Nietzsche says: "An altruistic 
attitude, one which has lost its egoism, is in 
every case an unfortunate thing. As with 
individuals, so it is with peoples. When a 
man begins to lose his ego he begins to lose 
his best instincts, and to choose by instinct 
that which is harmful under the belief that 
we are influenced by so-called 'disinterested 
motives,' is to be well on the road to deca- 
dence." 

Not to go so far as this master of aphor- 
ism, I maintain that egoism is not opposed 
to altruism, that the law of compensation 
does not produce egoism or selfishness. 

When an action concerns ourselves alone, 
with no possible reference to others, egoism 
is useful and lawful. From that egoism it- 
self springs the idea of compensation, for the 
incessant pursuit of happiness is after all 
the most lingering form of misery. 



232 THE THREAD OF LIFE 

Hear Emerson on the subject: "The same 
dualism underlies the nature and condition 
of man. Every excess causes a defect; every 
defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; 
every evil its good. Every faculty which is 
a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty 
put on its abuse. It is to answer for its mod- 
eration with its life. For every grain of wit 
there is a grain of folly. For everything you 
have missed, you have gained something else ; 
and for everything you gain, you lose some- 
thing." 

Take the case of an ambitious man who 
has seized the reins of power and dominates 
a nation; surely he has more responsibilities 
than a humble workman. If he fail of his 
promises, or the realization of his own ideas, 
he is betrayed, degraded, and abandoned, 
while the workman lives his simple life with 
satisfaction, and the consciousness of having 
done what he set out to do. 

Real happiness is something relative, de- 



THE LAW OF COMPENSATION 233 

pending upon the classes and their condi- 
tions. Wealth can not shut the door on 
Death, and Poverty may know the joys of 
domestic love and hope. Let a tyrant impose 
himself upon a people and they will increase 
tenfold their powers of resistance; and deal 
a punishment that fits the crime. In the 
human soul exist all conditions. To submit 
to the law of compensation is not to escape 
one's destiny. To recognize the bad is to 
be assured that one may attain to better 
things. The man of feeling suffers from his 
sensibility, the wise man rejoices in his wis- 
dom. The soul is tirelessly in search of what 
is good, right and just; it must live and have 
its being, in the most hopeless miseries or 
with the basest failures. 

That is why the idea of Nemesis is eternal. 
All action involves some reaction, all sorrow 
and all joy have their rungs in the social lad- 
der. The man born rich will suffer more by 
the loss of his fortune than the man who 



234. THE THREAD OF LIFE 

loses what little he once had. The one has 
nothing of which to envy the other. 

Burke somewhere says that no one may 
escape the injury of ever so little pride. The 
penalty of injustice is fear. Not to care 
has nothing to do with the law of compensa- 
tion, for, without morality, mistakes have no 
excuse, and to repeat one's faults shows 
some failure of our reasoning powers. 

At the same time, believing that an ill 
chance may be compensated by a happy one 
brings not the slightest relief to the spirit, 
if the spirit has made no effort toward the 
balance. A man must ever affirm his ego 
and keep his conscience on the watch to real- 
ize the compensation there may be for in- 
equalities of condition. 

Let the rich ride with the rich; if I am 
poor, I shall walk with the poor. That those 
who outstrip me in fortune and power are 
capable of love, does not prevent my loving, 
and my little sorrows and my little joys shall 



THE LAW OF COMPENSATION 235 

be neither shallower nor less sweet than the 
grief and triumphs of the great. 

Looking at life from this 'point of view 
one sees the law of compensation as the best 
and finest element in the formation of 
Character. 







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